Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails
by EchoBravoTango
Summary: PostHBP. Harry is out looking for the last Horcruxes. What are Ron and Hermione up to? What does Draco have to do with any of it? HPDM don't like, don't read and RWHG, but with a plot. May be M in later chapters for character deaths and war violence.
1. A Restless Knight

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**A Restless Knight**

The rain pounded against the windows of Privet Drive like a hundred tiny fingers. The growing darkness and the soft glow spilling from each window signaled the end of another troubled day. The evening news headlines flashed worrying and strange stories across the living room of Number Four. All the bodies from a London church had disappeared from their graves; a schoolteacher had murdered all her pupils that morning, an old historic ruin in the North had suddenly crumbled after centuries of stability, and the newest secretary in the Prime Minister's office had been killed in a plane crash. Nearly all the news was grave, and it had left the country considerably subdued.

'No stories about water-skiing budgies anymore,' Harry Potter reflected gloomily as he stared out the window onto Privet Drive, ears only half-tuned to the newscaster's voice. The Dursleys sat across from him, eyes glued to the television. It had become somewhat of a morbid ritual for them to watch the news each night, dinners of shredded carrots and cottage cheese perched precariously on their laps. Even Uncle Vernon had eased up on his manic torture of Harry, too enraptured as he was by the widespread destruction of his country.

'And they don't even know the half of it,' Harry thought to himself. He wondered how well his Aunt and Uncle would sleep if they knew that the bodies from the church hadn't vanished at all, but had been dug up and brought back to life. He doubted that they would be able to go on knowing that Mr. Number Ten and his family, who had recently vanished on a trip to Wales, might come crashing through their door at any moment in an undead rage. If the reaction of the Wizarding World was any indication, Muggle Britain would be thrown into a state of advanced turmoil if the truth were ever told to them.

Harry watched as a drop if water rolled over the frame of the window and began to slide through his field of vision. It hit one of its fellows halfway down and both were consumed by the other. The new, larger drop fell faster, dropping so quickly that it smashed into the frame at the bottom and broke into a thousand pieces. He watched several more drips destroyed by their own ambitious growth before pulling his eyes from the drenched figure of Mark Evans dragging his dog through the rain. Only Dudley looked up as he picked up his plate from the coffee table.

"_Wherer ou goring_?" He asked anxiously, his mouth full of potato. The Dursleys had shown an annoying need to be near Harry since he had arrived home from Hogwarts. They knew that he was their only means of defense in this invisible war. Yet Harry couldn't stand another minute of seeing Uncle Vernon's pulsing forehead vein (well used these days because of his constant proximity to Harry), and so he ignored Dudley.

Taking the steps two at a time to his bedroom, Harry quickly made it to his bedroom. Looking at the now-complete darkness outside, he grabbed a quill from his desk and crossed off July 30th on his calendar. Tomorrow, his 17th birthday, he would leave the Dursleys and travel to the Burrow. What would have been a happy day would be marred by the funeral of Kingsley Shakebolt, who had died just yesterday protecting the Muggle Prime Minister from Death Eaters.

While nobody was sure, since the only witness had been Kingsley himself, Harry was sure that the Death Eater that had attacked the Prime Minister was Snape. The hatred that had been seething in him since last June welled up again as he thought about it. _Snape_. He had worked alongside the Order for months, lured even Dumbledore into security, but he had betrayed them all in the end. Now he had killed two of them, adding further injury to insult. _Snape_. The quill Harry was holding snapped, he was gripping it that hard. What he didn't want to do to that man.

A fresh dousing of fear swept through the blonde boy as he ran down the dark streets of London. Every shadow and noise seemed to grab at his eyes, wrenching his face this way and that looking for an invisible and evasive pursuer. As he rounded a corner he thought he saw a figure move in a side alley. Seemingly out of reflex he pulled his wand from his pocket and held it in front of him like a sword. He hoped but no longer really believed that that would save him.

A cat, startled by his sudden pounding footsteps, darted out from a doorway. It had gone no more than a few steps when the boy had noticed it.

"Stupify!" He muttered automatically. The cat froze in its tracks.

"It would seem you are wasting your energy, cousin," a sneering voice came from the darkness of yet another side street.

Whipping around, the boy's eyes widened in horror as he recognized the heavy-eyed woman stepping into the lamplight. "Aunt Bellatrix," he murmured in dread.

"Ah, ah Draco," Bellatrix Lestrange chided mockingly. "For me to be your Auntie you would still have to be a Malfoy. You father disowned you, or had you forgotten?"

Draco said nothing. All of his thoughts and willpower were concentrated on two things. First he had to block Bellatrix from his mind, so she wouldn't know what he was planning. Secondly he had to Apparate far, far away, and quickly. Stalling for time, Draco attempted his best sneer and faced his Aunt.

"I am fairly confident in saying, Aunt Bellatrix, that I am much less out of favour with my father than you are with the Dark Lord."

"How dare you! I am one o the Dark Lord's most favoured -"

"Are you?" Draco snarled, thinking furiously, sneer firmly in place now. "He routinely sends his pets out looking for runaway teenagers now, does he?"

With a growl of rage Bellatrix raised her wand and slashed it through the air. Draco ducked wildly behind an old couch that somebody had put out as trash. There was an explosive noise as the fabric of couch ripped and then an acrid smell as it burst into flame. Draco stood, momentarily obscured by smoke, turned on the spot and vanished.

The sudden loss of the couch's heat told him in an instant that he had escaped for now, but he knew he was by no means safe. He was standing in the high street of Hogsmeade, and a goblin was peering at him appraisingly through the semi-frosted windows of the Three Broomsticks. Shuddering, Draco refocused himself on the plan. He needed to get out of here, but Bellatrix would trace any magic he used. Suddenly an idea came to him, and he threw his wand arm up into the air.

The morning dawned fresh and wet over Number Four, and Harry was awoken by a stray chill that had crept through the crack in his window. Immediately he was aware of the tension in the household. He could nearly feel the Dursleys all sitting around the kitchen table, eager to start to pretend Harry didn't exist and scared to lived without his protection. The mental image making him chuckle a bit to himself, Harry threw a pair of robes and Dobby's Christmas socks on, sat on his trunk and popped it closed and lugged it together with his broom and Hedwig's empty cage into the hall. He had managed to lurch halfway down the stairs with the trunk when he realized that he could magic in down, having come of age today.

With magic to make his work faster, Harry managed to shrink his things into walnut sized trinkets and stuff them in his pockets. Then, with some trepidation, he continued into the kitchen.

"Um," he began. "I'm…well I'm going now. Erm…thanks." He said lamely, marveling at how anticlimactic the end of an era of his whole life could be. The Dursleys looked at him, and he looked back. The rain began to drum on the roof again. Uncle Vernon coughed by way of farewell, Dudley slowly pushed his hands against his backside (clearly afraid that now that Harry could do magic he would want revenge), but Aunt Petunia's expression was surprising. She was looking at him with a mixture of concern and pride. She nodded at him, and he may have imagined it but it seemed that a small smile was even tugging at the side of her mouth.

"Right," Harry mumbled and turned for the last time from the kitchen. He glanced around the hall, a thrill of excitement stealing over him, and he stepped out the door, his shrunken trunk and cage bumping in his pocket. He took twelve confident steps down walk before he reached the sidewalk, and in that time he was soaked through be the renewed downpour. He didn't care, and taking a few more strides down the road he decided to summon the Knight Bus instead of flying.

'Much less conspicuous,' he thought happily, and then laughed at the idea of being seen by Muggles on his broom on his first day as a qualified wizard. Feeling as if he had just drank a tankard of Felix Felicis, Harry drew his wand arm quickly up.

BANG.

A violently purple bus sprang suddenly into existence in front of Harry. The bus landed so close to Harry that his fringe was blown back over his head, exposing his lightning bolt scar, one of the front wheels balanced on the curb. The bus doors gave a wrenching squeak as they opened a sound so vulgar that Harry actually plugged his ears. An elderly Muggle couple and their grandson across the street didn't even glance around.

It took Harry several moments to realize that something was wrong. Muffled raised voices punctuated the sudden silence surrounding the bus. A teenage voice bellowed gruffly from beyond the bus doors, "Come in!"

Harry stepped cautiously over the threshold of the bus and looked around. At first glance the bus seemed to be nearly deserted, but upon second glance Harry discovered that all 20-odd riders and the conductor of the bus were all crowded around a large armchair. The person in it was hidden from view.

"You've got a lot of nerve, stepping right on to this bus, bold ass brass. We know what you are," the young man in the conductor's outfit was saying. Harry recognized Eddie Carmichael, a Ravenclaw a year above him who had once tried to sell him Baruffio's Brain Elixer before their OWLs. He supposed, with a pang of pity, that Stan Shunpike must still be in Askaban.

The crowd around the armchair was muttering angrily, and some of the wizards nearest it were even fingering their wands. Wondering who the whole of the Knight Bus could be so interested in, Harry took several steps closer. At that moment, Eddie looked up at him and many others followed his gaze. Even as he vaguely noticed Eddie's eyes pop, the crowd parted and Harry had his first clear view of the person tied, for Harry now say he was tied, to the chair. It was Draco Malfoy.

He was tied by his wrists and ankles to a plush pink chair in the center of the Knight Bus. A rag was stuffed in his mouth. How the bus' riders had got him there, Harry didn't know, but he was sure _why_ they had. Ever since Lucius Malfoy had been sent to Askaban, the Malfoys had been under serious scrutiny by the Ministry. When both Narcissa and Draco had disappeared the same night as Dumbledore had been murdered, the wizarding community had seized, quite correctly, on this as proof of their allegiance to Voldemort. Harry had not heard of any of the Malfoys since then.

Yet here was Draco Malfoy, tied to an armchair in front of him. Malfoy's eyes flashed wildly around the room in plain fear. His left arm sleeve was pulled up to the elbow, exposing a snake tattoo so red and raw it looked as if it had been bleeding seconds before. His usually well-kept hair was falling into his face and looked in desperate need of a wash. All of him did, even his normally spotless robes. All the wizards around Malfoy were looking at him predatorily, and a ginger-haired witch at Malfoy's right elbow was twirling his wand in her hands.

Suddenly, Malfoy's desperate eyes caught Harry's. Harry's stomach swooped as he looked at the fear in his former enemy's eyes. He vividly remembered the night two months ago when he had watched Malfoy lower his wand to Dumbledore. 'He wouldn't have killed him,' Harry thought with certainty. It was this thought that prompted him to open his mouth at all. "What are you doing?"

Pulling himself up impressively, Eddie Carmichael pulled the lapels of his conductor's uniform straight and smiled at Harry, "We have just apprehended this criminal, Mr. Potter."

He looked at Harry, clearly expecting him to exclaim in praise or wring his hand. Instead, Harry said, "What crime is he accused of, then?"

Taken aback, Eddie's smile faltered a bit. Around him, the bus rider's were looking mildly surprised. Harry knew they were thinking his reaction was hardly Chosen One material.

For a few moments the only sound was the rain hammering at the bus windows, and then an elderly witch stepped forward from the silent crowd, "He's a Death Eater, Mr. Potter! Look, you can see the Mark right there on his arm." She shuddered dramatically.

"Ok," Harry said, nonplused, "but has he committed any crime? Has he killed, or used an Unforgivable?"

The witch considered this. "It hardly seems to matter-"

"It matters a lot," Harry interrupted. "Albus Dumbledore once told me that it is our choices that make us who we are. I hardly think Malfoy chose to be a Death Eater. He was much more likely forced into it by his parents, or Voldemort."

The entirety of the bus flinched at the Dark Lord's name, and Ernie Prang, the bus driver, lurched the wheel to the right so hard that an entire elementary school had to crowd up against the church beside it to avoid being hit. Malfoy's face snapped up to look Harry in the eye. He had wanted to join the Death Eaters, and he knew Harry knew it. Only the slight knit in his brow betrayed his confusion.

The bus was buzzing with mummers from its occupants. The word _Dumbledore_ was being used over and over. In his death, Professor Dumbledore's words had become law, and Harry had known it when he had evoked his name. Finally, Eddie turned from the whispering crowd and looked at Harry again, "If he isn't to be considered a criminal, Mr. Potter, what do want us to do with him?

"Let him go," Harry suggested. "He's obviously running from Voldemort, or why would he risk being on the Knight Bus?"

Eddie looked stricken. "Let him….go?" he repeated aghast. "But what if he has done Unforgivables? How would we know?"

Harry considered his options. He didn't know what Draco had done, so forcing him to reveal his secrets could condemn him. On the other hand, it seemed that it would be the only way to help him. Mind made up, Harry took the three steps that separated him from Draco, and reached into his robes. Pulling out a small vial of clear Veritaserum potion that he had nicked from Slughorn, Harry pulled the rag from Draco's mouth.

"Potter…" he rasped. His voice was harsh, and sounded as if he had just been running.

"Stick out your tongue Malfoy," Harry commanded. To his astonishment, Malfoy did it without question. Carefully Harry dropped three drops of Veritaserum onto Draco's tongue before straightening up. "What is your name?" he asked.

"Draco Malfoy," Malfoy answered in a suddenly deadened voice.

"How old are you?"

"17."

"What year are you in at Hogwarts?"

"I don't attend Hogwarts anymore."

Harry paused at that. He looked around at the bus apprehensively. Finally, he took a deep breath and continued, "Are you a Death Eater?"

"No," Malfoy murmured. "The Dark Lord had me expelled from his ranks for not killing Albus Dumbledore."

"Had he ever asked you to kill anyone else?"

"No."

"Have you ever killed anyone else?"

"No."

Harry felt relief. He looked appealingly around the bus, but was surprised to see them unconvinced. He turned back to Malfoy.

"Have you ever used an Unforgivable Curse?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"No," Malfoy muttered dully. "The Dark Lord did not feel I was powerful enough to be trusted with them."

Harry felt triumph, and decided to confirm his suspicion. "Are you on the run from the Death Eaters?"

"Yes. They are looking for me to try to kill me, as they killed my mother. The Dark Lord," Malfoy choked. "He does not accept failure."

Al through the bus now there was a good deal of approving nods and even smiles. Harry decided the time had come to act. He pulled his wand from his pocket and removed the ties holding Malfoy to the chair with a wave. Several people stepped back, alarmed, but Malfoy did not move. He sat on the chair, head down, seemingly uncaring about his renewed freedom. Harry turned to Eddie. "Are we in London?"

Eddie was still gazing at Malfoy as he muttered, "Where are we Ern?"

Ernie Prang was not looking at the road at all, as he had been watching the proceedings behind him. As a result, factories and fountains, mailboxes and mansions were leaping left and right, and it took Ernie a few moments to figure out their whereabouts.

"We are just not far from Piccadilly, Ed."

"Excellent." Harry said. "Stop the bus please."

The Knight Bus stopped entirely, so suddenly that Harry fell a few paces back, and Malfoy was brought reluctantly to his feet as his body kept moving forward. Harry seized Malfoy's marked arm around the wrist, pushed 22 sickles into Eddie's hands, and amid mild protest he pulled Malfoy off the bus. Clutching the despondent boy to him, Harry concentrated hard on the one place he felt he could go with a fugitive Death Eater and not have one or both of them killed. He swung them both around, and they vanished.


	2. What Kept You?

**_Disclaimer: _**If I owned Harry Potter this would be in a book.

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**What Kept You?**

They reappeared on the dusty curb of Grimmauld Place. Harry let go of Malfoy and began to walk up the road towards number 11, screwing his eyes up against the wind forcing itself in from the top of his glasses. His hair whipped across his face as he turned to look at Malfoy, who followed after a moment's hesitation.

"Where are we Potter?" the blond said, the smirking sneer filtering back more with every syllable now that he wasn't in danger. "Don't tell me you live in this Muggle hell hole."

"No," Harry retorted, his old desire to slap Malfoy's face resurfacing at the smirk, "you do."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, you have somewhere else to go, Malfoy? Oh, wait, I guess I can't call you that anymore can I? Seeing as you aren't a Malfoy anymo– "

WHAM. Malfoy's fist caught Harry's face so hard it knocked his glasses off, and it was only his Seeker reflexes that allowed him to catch them as they fell and stars spun in front of his eyes.

"What the hell?"

"Don't you dare talk down to me Potter. My parents may be dead to me, but I'm still Draco Malfoy. Just because _your_ parents are dead doesn't mean you aren't a Potter, does it?"

Harry's eyes narrowed behind his newly-replaced glasses, but before he could react he noticed an old man shuffling around the corner. Intuitively Harry could sense he did not want this person to see them. "Come on," he said to Draco with sudden urgency, "we have to get off the street. Listen to me: We are going to Number 12, Grimmauld Place."

Harry took a few steps up the walk up to Number 11. As if he had called it, Number 12 suddenly sprung into existence as Number 11 jostled Number 10 obligingly out of the way. Malfoy's steps faltered, but Harry reached back and seized his arm, dragging him up the path. He quickly unlocked the door with a whispered "_dumbledore_", pushed Malfoy in after him and shut the door softly.

"Potter, wha–"

"Shhh!" Harry held his finger to his lips, looking sternly at the blond before pressing his eye against the peep-hole in the heavy wooden door. What he saw made him gasp.

The old man that came around the corner was nowhere to be seen. Just appeared from under the rags and shedding her cane was Bellatrix Lestrange. Her black hair was wild about her head, and she wore a most sour expression. She had stopped directly outside Number 12, which had shrunk back from the street again and become invisible.

She looked around the houses of the neighborhood accusatorily, as if they had stolen something from her. The houses of Grimmauld Place had a definite air of aged decadence. They were all larger, sprawling, very old and in varying states of disrepair. Clearly this had once been an elite place to live, which explained why the Black family home was here, but in recent decades it had been neglected, and now most of the old homes had been converted into dingy quadruplexes and so-called luxury apartments.

"What is it Potter?" Malfoy asked, sneering.

"Bellatrix Lestrange."

"_What?_" Malfoy said, horrified. He backed several paces away from the door as if it might burst open at any second.

"Is she the Death Eater that's been hunting you?"

Malfoy nodded.

"Well she won't find you here. This house is impossible to find unless the Secret Keeper tells you about it."

"Then how….oh." Realization dawned on Malfoy's face, and a smirk tugged at the right hand corner of his mouth. "So you _do_ live here."

"No, Malfoy. I just own the house. As I said before, it would seem it would be _you_ that will be living here, considering if you step outside Bellatrix will sense your magic and find you in a few seconds."

Malfoy's eyebrows quirked at this, but he seemed determined not to look surprised again. He turned to face the dimly-lit hall, taking it in appraisingly. His eyes landed on the trolls-leg umbrella holder. "Well, I can see you decorate just as well as you dress, Potter," he drawled.

Annoyance rose in Harry's chest again, but he decided not to retaliate directly. Instead, he asked Malfoy to follow him to the kitchen. Here he pulled out some boxes of cereal, some bowls, and some milk he was surprised to see was fresh. The only other people Harry had trusted with the password to his house were Remus, Hagrid, Hermione and the Weasleys. He assumed Remus must have visited recently, perhaps during last week's full moon.

Harry tossed Malfoy a bowl and spoon, which he caught with ease. Selecting some Coco Shreddies from the boxes on the table, the blond didn't even wait for Harry to finish with the milk before tucking into his cereal. He ate with a gusto that surprised Harry, and suggested to him that Malfoy hadn't eaten in a few days. 'How long had he been on the run?' Harry wondered, "Why leave the Death Eaters?"

Malfoy stopped eating. He looked up at Harry, who was sitting on the counter with his bowl in his lap. Harry realized he must have spoken aloud. Malfoy hesitated a moment longer, steeling himself, and then announced, "I was supposed to kill Dumbledore. I let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, I banished Dumbledore's wand."

"I know." Harry said softly. His eyes were closed, seeing that night again for the thousandth time as if it were happening. "But then you couldn't do it. You lowered your wand. You said they would kill you, and your family." He hesitated, and then admitted, "I thought they had."

Malfoy looked at him in wonder. Harry could see the puzzle pieces falling into place as he stared. "The second broom?" Malfoy asked, and then whistled, "_That's_ how you knew it was Snape so fast. We assumed that Dumbledore had put some spell on you that connected you somehow, you were always his little puppet."

In an instant the atmosphere in the room chilled. Harry dropped off the counter, placed his bowl in the sink, and walked away without another word.

Malfoy stood too, following Harry. "What Potter? You think I'm wrong?"

"Oh," Harry turned, now in the hall. His voice was deadly soft, "this from the Death Eater?"

"Dumbledore made you into his poster boy and you know it. Truth, Justice and all that other stuff."

"Oh yeah?" Harry replied. "Well its because of Dumbledore that you aren't in Azkaban or a heap on the pavement outside right now. I'm making good on his promise to protect you."

"Is that what I am?" Malfoy hissed, "A CHARITY CASE?"

He had yelled these last words, and before Harry could do anything the curtains behind Malfoy flew open.

"HALF-BREEDS, TRAITORS OF BLOOD, BEFOULING THE HOUSE OF MY FOREFATHERS!" Mrs. Black screeched, but she was nearly drowned out by the high picked shriek that Malfoy had made. In his haste to get away from his "attacker", Malfoy fell into the troll leg. This fell over, scattering umbrellas across the hall and effectively waking all the portraits in the hall, many of whom contributed enthusiastically to the ruckus.

Harry darted forward and managed, by some inhuman feat, to wrench the curtains closed. "SHUT UP!" He bellowed at the other portraits, who sensed the fun was over and fell meekly into silence.

Malfoy looked up at him in shock for a second or two more before murmuring in awe, "What the hell kind of house is this, Potter?"

Then, miraculously, they broke into peals of laughter. Harry helped Malfoy collect up the umbrellas, the laughter sending little waves of pleasure though his body. He hadn't laughed in ages, and he could tell Malfoy hadn't either.

The next few days passed in relative calm at Grimmauld Place. Harry had decided to stay, just until he was sure he could trust Malfoy with his home. He had told Ron and Hermione that he needed space for a few days, and they had respected his wishes. For his part, Malfoy had been surprisingly easy to get along with. Somewhere during the near week they were living together Malfoy had become Draco, and Potter had become Harry, and Harry had made a startling discovery. Draco was a lot like Ron.

At first he had brushed this off as impossible. Ron and "Malfoy" were as opposite as two people can get, so how could "Draco" and Ron be so similar? They came from rival families, rival houses, they _hated_ each other. They even cheered for different Quidditch teams. Draco had been amused when he heard that Ron supported the Cannons. "Typical," he had said, "of Weasel to support the losers. He would know how it feels."

This had caused rather a larger argument, which had finally been resolved with a high-stakes wizard chess match that ended up with Harry having to wear Sirius' mum's dress robes for a day. However, other than this fight and a few brief tussles, the boys got along fairly well for the rest of the week. As a result, the day of Bill and Fleur's wedding snuck up on Harry rather rudely.

"Wake up Harry!" said a cheerfully familiar voice, and Harry's bedroom was flooded with light.

Groggily Harry opened his eyes. The freckled face of Ron Weasley beamed down at him from the end of his bed. In a second Harry was wide awake. Where was Draco?

Glancing over at the other twin bed that Draco had occupied for the last week Harry found it immaculate. It looked as if nobody had _ever_ slept in it, let alone that somebody was there just last night. Draco was nowhere to be found.

Harry sat up. "Hey Ron," he said sleepily, ruffling his hair. "Whatcha doing here?"

Ron gave him an odd look. "What am I doing here? Harry, the wedding."

Harry gave him a blank look.

"Bill and Fleur's wedding?"

Harry blinked, then gave a nervous laugh. "Oh, that wedding! Right, is it that late in the morning already?"

Ron smiled and nodded, but he still looked slightly confused. "Yeah it's nearly ten Harry. Hermione is waiting for us downstairs."

"OK, I'll be down in a second, let me just throw some clothes on."

Ron grinned again and went downstairs, and soon Harry heard his low voice talking to Hermione downstairs. Harry began throwing his clothes around looking for his dress robes. He found them, and then proceeded to rip his pajamas off. Just as he was shimmying into his underwear he heard a small cough from the corner of the room, "hem _hem_".

Harry jumped out of his skin. Whirling around, he blushed scarlet as he saw Draco lounging in the armchair in the corner of the room, invisibility cloak on his lap. Harry turned back to face the wall again as fast as he could, "Jesus Draco! A little warning please, you perve!"

Draco was laughing silently so hard that he was having trouble staying on the chair. Still he closed his eyes until Harry had pulled his dress robes over his head and fallen onto the bed yanking his socks on. "So Draco, I assume you feel like staying hidden for now, given the stunt you just pulled?"

Draco smirked. "Caught you with your pants down, didn't I?"

Harry flushed darker. There was something about Draco's leering stare that made Harry feel as if the other boy knew all his secrets. And as well as they were getting along, Harry had secrets he'd prefer Draco didn't know…ever.

"Yes, well, whatever," Harry said louder than he meant to, then lowered his voice again as he heard the conversation downstairs falter. "Don't tear my house apart while I'm gone."

Feeling his ears and cheeks still burning and unable to stand another second under the Slytherin's sneer, Harry swifty turned on his heel and, with as much dignity as he could muster, strutted from the room. Taking several deep breaths and willing his blush to fade, he went downstairs quietly.

He was just about to announce his arrival in the kitchen when he heard Ron's deep voice murmur from behind the door in a way Harry had never heard him speak, "So Hermione, think we'll get any private time at this wedding."

Harry stopped just outside the slightly open door and peered carefully into the kitchen. Hermione was sitting on the kitchen counter, and Ron was standing between her legs, Hermione's hands linked lazily behind Ron's neck. They were smiling secretively at each other, as if they had just told a joke only they understood.

Harry watched in fascination as the usually clumsy and awkward Ron ran his hand up Hermione's leg and captured her lips briefly with his. Hermione, grinning seductively, used her linked hands to pulled Ron into a much deeper kiss, wrapping her legs around his waist. Harry choked. This was Ron. This was _Hermione_. He had always known that they might get together, but he was shocked to actually see it.

Ron was kissing down Hermione's neck. Hermione gasped, and then whispered worriedly, "Ron! Harry will be down soon!"

Sensing his cue, Harry retreated a few steps up the flight of stairs and then descended particularly loudly. He marched back across the entrance hall to the kitchen door and pulled it open as loudly as possible. He had to repress the desire to laugh. Ron was standing at the very opposite corner of the kitchen from Hermione, who was busily putting utensils away in the bread drawer.

"Hey guys." He said happily.

"Oh _there_ you are!" Hermione gave an exaggerated start. She dropped one last knife in between the hamburger buns and the pumpernickel and came over to give him a bone crushing hug.

"Yeah mate, we've been waiting." Ron said, and Harry couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, which Ron ignored. "What kept you?"

Harry shrugged. He could hardly say 'Yeah, I was watching you and Hermione make out on my counter' or 'Oh, I was just being ogled by a wanted Death Eater in my bedroom. You remember Malfoy, don't you?', so he kept silent.

"Oh gosh!" Hermione said. She was looking at a silver watch on her wrist. "We had better get going! Your mother is going to be frantic, Ron!"

"Great," Ron mumbled under his breath.

"Harry, are you OK to apparate? I know you don't have your license, neither does Ron really, but the Ministry is _so_ busy it hardly has time to –"

"I'll be fine Hermione." Harry grinned at her, focused his mind on the kitchen in the Burrow and turned. He reappeared almost instantly amidst the advanced chaos of the Weasley's home. It was packed with people going in every direction and carrying various objects. Every surface in the room, and each corner of the floor, was covered in little piles of presents wrapped in pastel wrapping. Harry glimpsed a large present in the pile nearest him wrapped in violently purple and lurid green wrapping. 'From Gred and Forge' was scrawled along the ribbon.

Two pops just behind him signaled the arrival of his two friends, and he turned to see them. Just at that moment however, a large blue ball whipped between them and hovered at the doorway. It was followed more or less immediately by a group of wizard children and several nursemaids, who clattered through, obscuring his friends from view.

A hand slipped into his, and he turned to find Ginny looking up at him.

"Hi Harry!" she greeted him warmly, wrapping her arms around his waist and placing a swift kiss on his cheek. It took all of his self control to not kiss her back, but he managed it.

"I can't stay and talk, Mum's trying to get everyone into their seats, and the wedding party has to have their photos taken." She was indeed looking stunning in pale gold robes and but the creature in Harry's chest was oddly quiet.

"Neville is here, and he brought Luna. They're going out now you know," she grinned at Harry's surprised look. "Yeah, I know. Luna owled me earlier this month to tell me. Hogwart's oddest couple ever!" She pecked his cheek and turned into the crowd, disappearing as suddenly as she had come. His cheek tingled where she had kissed it, but he felt nothing like he had with her last summer.

Ron and Hermione were nowhere to be seen, so Harry pushed his way though the crowd in the house towards the garden, where he could see chairs set up in the brilliant sunlight. He was held up several times by members of the Order and fellow students from Hogwarts, the latter who all insisted that he meet their parents, so by the time he spotted Luna and Neville and head for an empty seat beside them the rows of chairs were nearly full.

"Hi Harry!" they both greeted him, Luna rising to hug him.

"Hey Neville, hey Luna! Congratulations, Ginny told me that you two are going out."

Luna nodded with her vague, happy smile, and Neville flushed. Just then the organ started, and Harry took his seat. Seconds later Ron slid into the seat beside him, Hermione at his heels. Both were rather flushed.

"Hey mate, _what kept you_?" Harry said pointedly, and his face spilt into a grin as Ron flushed. Two little flower girls, Fleur's family from the look of their hair, walked down the aisle tossing petals onto the grass, and for a brief moment there was no war. There was just Harry, his friends and this beautiful sunny day.


	3. Life Goes On

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything I love.

Thanks to **unforgivablecursecaster** and **claire2007** for reviewing. Hope you like this chapter too!

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Life Goes On**

Harry would truly never forget that day. After the ceremony Bill and Fleur invited them all for a reception in the field behind the garden wall. There the Weasleys had set up a huge white tent (Harry _swore_ it had not been there at the start of the ceremony), and tables and chairs were arranged in groups around a large wooden dance floor. Fred and George had hired a band as a present to their brother, and Harry, Ron Hermione, Luna, Ginny and even Neville danced all night and into the morning. At just past midnight Bill and Fleur apparated off for their honeymoon. It was only whenever Harry saw the numerous security guards and felt the protective wards on the tent that he remembered the war at all.

The next morning began slowly for everyone but Harry. He woke up early after a very odd dream. He had been reliving a time by the lake he had spent with Ginny last spring. Gradually her long red hair had shortened, and her soft chest had turned into a hard, toned one. Dream Harry didn't seem to care, he liked this person just as much. He rolled them over in the grass, pinning them to the ground and tangling a hand in their hair, kissing along their neck teasingly. It had taken a while for Harry to realize he was dreaming about kissing Draco.

_That_ woke him up. He lay in Ron's spare bed, staring at the ceiling. Lots of thoughts went through his head. Was he gay? No, he had defiantly lusted after Ginny enough, he knew that. Plus, he had never actually felt like pinning Draco down while actually with him. The thought made him shiver, and he realized with a little jolt that he actually didn't mind the idea.

'My hormones are just getting the better of me,' he thought reasonably. 'So, I wouldn't mind kissing a boy. That doesn't make me gay….does it?' His head hurt terribly, and he could feel the flickering lights on the ceiling in the back of his throat.

Most of the party guests had overindulged, and those who could not be trusted to Floo or Apparate home safely had fallen asleep on couches, tables and floors throughout the Burrow. Harry had a killer headache and a fuzzy feeling in his mouth. He gagged, and swung his feet out of bed. They landed softly on something warm and mushy. Fred was lying beside his bed.

Careful not to tread on the twin, Harry got up and wandered across the hall to the bathroom with his eyes still mostly closed. He wondered if Hermione knew any hangover remedies as he gargled some cool water. He was still wearing his robes from last night, but all his clothes were at Number Twelve, so he just straightened them the best he could.

Walking back into the room, he surveyed the scene. They were in Ron's room, which was still covered in Cannons paraphernalia. Lying on the floor were Fred and some good looking bloke Harry vaguely remembered worked with Charlie…or something. Both Ron and Hermione were draped over Ron's bed and each other. Harry grinned and walked carefully and quietly over to his friends.

"Hey Ron," he said, shaking the redhead's arm slightly. His eyes cracked open.

"Hey 'arry, what's up?" he mumbled sleepily, eyebrows creasing ever so slightly. Then he noticed the bushy-haired head on his chest, and he paled ever so slightly. He looked up with eyes open wide at Harry and said earnestly, "Harry we meant to tell you, we were going to."

"It's okay, I knew." Ron raised his eyebrows, but Harry did not elaborate.

"So you're ok with this?"

Harry smiled. "It's not like she's my sister or anything," he said with a wink. "I'm going now, but I'll come see you off the on the Hogwarts train tomorrow."

Ron gave him an odd look. "Harry, we're not getting on the train, we're going with you. Remember?"

"Yeah, about that. Ron, listen, don't take this the wrong way, but I'd rather do this alone. It seems like that's how it's meant to be. I won't be able to focus if I'm worried about you, and I don't think I can handle losing either of you because of my destiny. Besides, I had a couple things I need to have people do at Hogwarts."

"I don't want to do nothing at all."

"You won't be, I promise. I will sleep better knowing you and Hermione are safe at Hogwarts. The Order already lost Kingsley, I don't know how many more deaths I can handle. Please Ron." Harry looked straight into the eyes of his oldest friend. There he saw a reflection of all the apprehension and fear that were making his heart pound. Ron looked at him for several long moments.

"Okay," he said finally, resigned. "Promise you won't shut Hermione and I out though.."

"Thanks. I promise I won't shut you out," Harry said, relief bursting in his chest. "Say bye to Hermione for me."

"See you, mate. Oh, wait, Hermione had a note she wanted to give you. It's over there on the dresser" Ron's eyes were already dropping closed again. Harry went to the dresser, got the envelope and then trod his way across the room gently. He turned to look at his friends once more, and grinned despite himself as he imagined Mrs. Weasley finding Hermione in Ron's bed later that morning.

He walked downstairs to find only Mr. Weasley awake. He was dressed in his work clothes and looked harassed. Harry glanced at the clock; it was 10 o'clock already.

"Oh, hullo Harry. Got to go into the Ministry, some bloke has cursed a whole load of chocolate frog cards and they want me to sort it out. Are you off too?"

"Yes. Thank you for the wedding Mr. Weasley. I'll see you at King's Cross tomorrow?"

"Oh I hope so Harry, but I never know these days." He smiled once last time at Harry and vanished with a small 'pop!'

Harry's head was pounding so much that he decided it would be better to Floo home. He immediately regretted this decision when he was dumped unceremoniously from the drawing room fireplace, head continuing to spin even as his body stopped. Immediately he sensed something was wrong.

There was shouting in the kitchen, loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to wake the portraits in the entrance hall. Head and heart hammering, Harry walked as quickly as he could to the landing and down the stairs.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you now for what you did to Albus," a voice growled. Harry recognized it as Remus. Harry had rarely heard him so fired up.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you now for trespassing. This is Harry's house," Draco's voice sneered back, but Harry heard a slight quaver in it.

"He has invited me to stay whenever I choose to, which is more than I think I can say for you, Malfoy. You are _just_ like your father."

Harry was just fast enough to summon the jug Draco tossed at Remus. Restraining his new friend by the arm with difficulty, Harry grunted out, "You aren't right about that, Remus. He _is_ my houseguest, and he _isn't_ like his father. Not by a long shot, not anymore."

Silence greeted these words. Remus looked flabbergasted. Draco stopped struggling and looked smug. Harry had a strong desire to wipe the smirk off the blonde's face. After a long moment, Remus finally asked politely as he seemed capable, "I assume you have your reasons?"

"I do." Harry said simply.

"Care to elaborate?" Remus said, slightly less patiently.

"Isn't it enough to know I have my reasons?" Harry said, stubbornly. This was Draco's story to tell, not his.

"No, dammit, it's not!" Remus nearly shouted, catching both young wizards off guard. Harry felt Draco shift unconsciously towards him, leaning on his arm and even in the midst of this situation it gave him the oddest feeling in his chest.

"Harry, the last man who told me that he trusted someone but would not elaborate was killed by the very man he trusted. And to be very honest, he was much better a wizard than you are as yet." Remus said, regaining his composure, but now Harry saw that the lines on his old Professor's face were deeper, and his eyes deader even than when Sirius had died. Suddenly Harry was hit with the realization that just like him, and just like Hagrid, Remus had looked at Dumbledore as something of a father figure. If Hogwarts had had another Headmaster, Remus would certainly not be a wizard today.

Feeling a sudden intense empathy for Remus, Harry explained that if anyone were to tell the story, it should be Draco. The blonde nearly refused, but he caught the pleading eyes of his new friend and relented. Remus listened throughout the story without comment, wand still raised at his chest. At certain points, Harry interrupted to give his perspective, but for the better part of ten minutes it was Draco's baritone that filled the tense air of the kitchen.

It wasn't until Draco reached the end of his story that Remus lowered his wand. "Well Harry, Draco, your story is an interesting one. I am inclined to trust you Draco, just as Harry is, but I still think you should not be here alone."

Both boys started to protest, but Remus held up a hand and, just as they had when they were 13, they fell silent. "I am thinking as much about Draco's safety as Harry's. _Think about it_ boys, I nearly attacked Draco tonight. Do you think Mad-Eye or the Twins would have had as much control as I?"

Draco raised his eyebrows and mouthed '_Control?_' at Harry, but the Gryffindor ignored him. Remus was right; it was a good thing it had been him to come tonight. Draco had been lucky. "But Remus, I don't want somebody bothering me with what I've got to do," he said pointedly. Draco did not know about the Horcruxes, and Harry wanted to keep it that way. "The twins or Mrs. Weasley would be constantly in my hair, and who _knows_ what they would do to Draco?"

Remus nodded, and then for the first time he smiled. "I was thinking about Tonks, actually. We were planning on moving in together anyway, so with your permission it would be no hassle to move in here."

Harry grinned. Draco frowned, "Tonks? As in Ted Tonks, my mother's Muggle brother-in-law?"

"Yes, his daughter Nymphadora, though if you call her that you may end up wishing that Moody was staying here instead," said Harry, still grinning. He liked having Tonks around. She was kind of like a big sister and an aunt all in one.

Draco still looked skeptical, but the matter was put aside as Remus said, "Harry, I actually came over to give you this. James left it with Sirius when he went into hiding, and I think it might have been intended to go to you at your seventeenth birthday. I think it may help you this year."

He handed Harry a leather pouch, which was heavier than it looked. Harry didn't open it, however, because just then he let out a jaw-cracking yawn and decided that he really had to sleep again. Remus' mysterious gift would just have to wait.

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

"Write us?" Hermione asked the next day. She was standing on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, shiny Head Girl badge Harry didn't know she'd got pinned to her jumper. Tears shined in her eyes but she didn't let them fall.

Ron laughed, "Fat chance, Hermione. Harry doesn't even write us when he's cooped up with nothing to do, let alone when he's search–"

"_Why don't we get our things on the train, Ronald?_" Hermione said pointedly, reminding Ron of where they were. The two of them left, abandoning Harry to stand alone on the platform. More than ever he felt like a marked man, separate from everyone.

"Hey Harry!" called a voice to his left. Seamus, Dean and Neville were all heading towards him. He smiled faintly back at them.

"Hey Seamus, your mum letting you go back then?" he asked.

"Yeah, I convinced her somehow," Seamus grinned.

"Harry, your stuff on the train already?" asked Dean, who was lugging a bag the size of a small camper-van behind him with difficulty.

"Uh no…." he trailed off awkwardly.

Surprisingly, it was Neville who cottoned on first. "You aren't getting on the train, are you?"

Seamus grinned, "Flying that car again?"

Harry couldn't help but smile at that, "Not exactly. I'm…I'm not going back to Hogwarts."

"What?" hissed Dean, and Seamus swore. Neville didn't look very surprised.

"Luna said she figured that you might not be coming back with us. You got something brave and noble to do, don't you?" he said, looking unsurprised.

"I guess you could say that Nev."

"Harry, what about school?" Dean asked.

"What about _Quidditch_?" Seamus added.

"Neither of them will matter much if Voldemort kills me in my bed one night, will it?" Harry said, a bit recklessly. All three of the other boys looked suddenly grave.

"You are going to be careful, right mate?"

"Yeah, because if you die, we'll kill you," said Seamus, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

Just then Ron and Hermione returned, with Luna and Ginny in tow behind them. The train whistle blew, and Neville jumped.

"I've got to say goodbye to my Gran!" he shouted, dashing away into the crowd.

"And we've got to get this beast on the train," said Dean, and he and Seamus began to drag their monstrous trunk towards the train.

"Compartment 12!" Ron called after them, and then the remaining four turned to Harry. Harry looked at them, his four closest friends at Hogwarts, and the enormity of the situation settled on him. He really _wasn't_ going back. He would never be a Hogwarts student again, never lie on his red four poster bed and listen to Ron snore, never catch the snitch, and never walk around the lake. He wouldn't be there to study for NEWTs, or to see his friends graduate. He might never see his friends again _at all_. A lot could happen before Christmas.

His eyes felt heavy and full all of a sudden. He reached out and pulled Luna into a tight hug, then Ginny, mumbling his parting words to them. Next Ron came forward, and Harry stuck out his hand automatically, and Ron nearly broke his wrist as he pulled Harry into a bone-crushing hug. They stood, ear-to-ear like that, for several long moments, and when Harry pulled away he saw Ron's eyes were just as heavy and full as his. His best friend looked quickly away, swiping his sleeve across his face.

Harry reached for Herimone, and pulled her into nearly as tight a hug. Mostly hidden in her mane of brown hair, Harry finally let his tears fall. A whistle blew, and kids dashed around them, jostling to get on the train. Harry reveled in this last hug, trying his best to remember how Hermione felt, smelled and sounded as she said goodbye. Pulling away finally, Harry quickly wiped his eyes, and did his best to smile. He handed Hermione an envelope.

"Read that later, with just you guys around, ok? And be good this year," he said, wagging his eyebrows suggestively from Ron to Hermione.

Ron flushed, but Hermione ignored him and said seriously, "_You_ be good Harry. Don't be reckless, please."

"I won't…I promise," he added when she still looked skeptical. The final whistle blew, and the train's engines roared to life.

"Go!" he said, still smiling, and they turned as one and dashed to the train doors and up the steps. Moments later, and just as the train started to move, they reappeared at an open train window. Harry stood back, stuffing his hands in his pockets. His hand hit parchment, and he pulled the object out. It was the Marauder's Map, in his pants beside his Cloak. He hardly needed it anymore.

Running up to the window, which was slowly crawling along the platform, Harry called over the engines, "Ron!"

His best friend pushed through the crush of students waving to family on the platform, "Yeah mate?"

"Here!" Harry shoved the map into Ron's hands. "I don't need it anymore and you just might! Take good care of it!" Ron looked stunned for a second, but then he grinned at Harry, who was now jogging to stay beside the train.

"Thanks Harry! Take care!" Ron shouted, and then the train was going too fast for Harry to keep up. In what seemed like no time, the train had turned the corner and was gone, carrying all his close friends with it.

Harry stood there for a long time before turning and slowly making his way across the platform, up the stairs towards Muggle London. He decided he should walk home; the air would do him good. He pushed the turnstile over and worked his way against the tide of people coming into the station on the way to work. When he got outside what he saw was enough to stop his heart.

Draco Malfoy was sitting outside, leaning on a motorcycle that Harry had seen in storage at Grimmauld Place. He was dressed the part of a motor head as well. Black jeans hugged his legs, and a dark jacket fit well over his shoulders. Just then he looked up and, as crappy as he was feeling, Harry had to laugh. He had gelled his hair so that one lock curled over across his forehead, and he had dark sunglasses over his eyes. Seeing Harry he grinned too.

"Hey Harry, hop on."

"Oh no way Draco, I'm going home. I told Hermione I _wouldn't_ get myself killed," he joked but he was smiling as he said it.

"_Ha ha ha_, Potter. I'm not sitting there watching you mope all day when I have it on good word that somebody put Bellatrix in St. Mungo's. I am going to celebrate today, and you are going to enjoy it with me." He tossed Harry a helmet.

Harry caught it, and put it on with a reluctant grin. "Somebody put Bellatrix in St. Mungo's? Who?"

"Moody!" said Draco gleefully. "He got her with some jinxed pair of shoes or something. I think I could actually learn to like that man."

Harry rolled his eyes, "Whatever Malfoy, I'm driving." He grinned at the affronted look on Malfoys face and straddled the bike. Draco scowled, but swung his leg over the bike too. He settled just behind Harry, and at the blonde's touch Harry broke out in goosebumps. Draco shifted to get his feet onto the frame, getting even closer, and Harry gasped a little but tried to make it sound like a cough. He turned the key to the bike, and the engine roared to life. Harry kicked the stand up and turned the bike carefully out onto the street. Draco's arms circled his waist easily, and then he gave an appreciative whoop as Harry hit the gas.

The bike sped through traffic, parting it just as the Ministry cars Harry had once been in had, and soon the boys were zipping along the highway out of London. On Draco's suggestion, Harry took an exit onto a deserted country road.

"What's there to see out here Draco?" Harry turned to ask.

"Nothing, which means there's nothing to be seen _by_, so," he leaned forward, pressing his chest against Harry's back and reaching over his arms, "we can do…_this_."

Draco flipped a switch beside the ignition, and suddenly the whole bike tipped backward. Before Harry could process it, they were in the air soaring over fields towards the sky. Draco's arms tightened on his waist, and Harry grinned.

"Why didn't you tell me this flew?!"

"More fun this way," Draco smirked. Had he been able to Harry would have smacked him, but as it was he just tightened his grip on the handles and, laughing, headed for the clouds above him.


	4. Godric's Hollow

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything worth reading.

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Godric's Hollow**

Flying a motorbike was nothing like flying a broom. The engine purred underneath him, and the bike pitched side to side with the wind. It took Harry several minutes to master the art of holding the bike steady. By then they were high in the sky, flying through a thin cloud. Mist fogged Harry's glasses and the cold, wet air chilled his arms, so he pointed the bike even higher.

Quite suddenly they broke through the cloud. Though on the ground it was a pretty overcast, unpleasant day, up here above the clouds there was only sunshine. For miles and miles around them all that was visible was a landscape of white fluffy clouds. For great expanses the clouds were nearly flat, then suddenly they would ripple, bend and dip. To Harry it looked just like another country, made all of cloud, lying several miles over Britain. The impossibly bright sun made the clouds look so solid that it was hard to believe they were really nothing but air.

"Wow," he heard Draco breath behind him. Harry knew he had never been this high on his broom before, and apparently Draco hadn't either.

Some movement below him caught his eyes and he looked down. There were two little creatures in the clouds. They were white and looked oddly translucent, as if somebody had painted them using too much water. At first he thought he was just imagining them, but then Draco whispered, "_Nimbula_."

"Pardon?" Harry asked, in a hushed voice.

"Those things down there, they must be nimbula." Seeing Harry's blank face, Draco continued, "They are cloud dwelling creatures, but nobody knows much about them. They are really, really rare to see."

"But what _are_ they?" Harry couldn't help but asking.

"Well nobody knows what they are made of, if that's what you mean. They study them in the department of mysteries actually. My grandmother used to say that they were life that hadn't happened yet, or something."

"Oh," was all Harry could think to say to that. Both of them watched the two nimbula climb up a could hill and roll down the other side. They sat there in silence, Draco's arms still linked loosely around Harry's waist, watching the creatures trek across the cloud landscape.

Eventually Harry broke the peace, "So Draco, where do you want to go?"

Draco laughed softly, "I haven't got anywhere to go, remember? I was hoping you'd have an idea."

Harry nodded and thought it over. He had wanted to visit Godric's Hollow, but he had hardly thought he'd do it with Draco Malfoy behind him on a flying motorbike. Still, there could be no harm in taking Draco with him…could there? As long as he didn't have to explain the search for the horcruxes, having somebody with him might not be so bad.

"Yeah, yeah I have an idea." Harry pulled out his wand, fixed his mind on Godric's Hollow and whispered, "_Point me_."

His wand spun to the right on his palm, and Harry carefully steered the bike that way. Setting the wand on the middle of the handlebars like a compass, Harry took off. Excitement and fear crashed through him. He was going home, back to where his whole life with Voldemort had begun. He was going to see his parents graves.

His wand tilted down suddenly, and Harry pushed the handlebars so that the bike went into a gentle dive. The sun slowly died as the freezing cloud wrapped around them again. Harry's stomach gave a little lurch as Draco pulled him a bit closer to stay warm. Wind rushed past his ears as he broke the clouds again.

They had reappeared above a sprawling countryside. A couple miles ahead of them, a small cluster of homes was visible, punctuated by a church with a high steeple. Harry knew that flying a motorbike into a town in broad daylight would be a bit of a magical giveaway, and so he carefully lined up with a road and touched them down a mile or so from town. A very surprised horse neighed in a felid beside the road and cantered away, but other than that their descent seemed to have gone unnoticed.

"Where are we, Harry?" asked Draco curiously.

Harry indicated the sign that read '_Welcome to Godric's Hollow_' as they sped past it, adding, "This is where I lived with my parents."

"_Godric_'s Hollow?" Draco said, "As in Godric Gryffindor?"

"I'm not sure," Harry said honestly, "I've never been here before." He pulled the bike into a parking spot on the main street of the village. Looking around, he saw that the village of Godric's Hollow was really not much more than a post office, a grocer, and a church. Several houses were clustered around these fixtures. The only thing at all extraordinary about the town was a very large building, bigger even than the church, which lay at the very end of the main road.

The building had obviously once been a house, though very long ago. A bronze chandelier hung from the ceiling of a covered front door, over which a huge Union Jack was rippling in the faint breeze. Ivy crawled over every inch of the grey stone, which was obviously well cared for but worse for wear purely from age. The center block of the building was bigger than two of the Dursley's houses stacked onto each other, and from each side of this stretched two large wings, each the size of a small church. Across the front of the main building the words '_Town Hall and Godric's Hollow Elementary School_' were written in shining bronze.

However, what surprised Harry most about the Town Hall, once he got over the size, were the statues guarding each corner of the roof. Where most buildings would have gothic gargoyles, this building had four lions, each with their teeth barred and right paw raised. Even more unusual were the twisting pillars of the entranceway. Stone centaurs and goblins, mermaids and even grindylows crawled around the columns. This house had obviously once been magical.

Draco seemed to have noticed the same thing as Harry. "Definantly Godric Gryffindor," he said.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, just as a little, balding man walked over to them.

"Hello there!" He greeted them cheerfully and very quickly. "Who are you? What brings you to Godric's Hollow? I'm the mayor here, you see. We don't get many visitors…?" He trailed off, looking at them expectantly.

"Oh," Harry hesitated. "Hi, um, I'm Harry, and this Draco. I, um, well…I used to have family here."

"Harry, Harry…Harry what?" the mayor asked.

"Potter. Harry Potter, sir."

The little man's eye's widened. "Harry Potter, did you say? Not Lily and James' little boy?"

Harry blinked, stunned, and then said rather uncertainly, "Um, yes sir."

"My goodness! I knew your parents, if course I did. Not a nicer pair of people in the entire Hollow. Of course they were here such a short time, before….Well it's quite nice to see you Harry, most excellent!"

The little man grabbed his arm and Harry was hauled around to meet what seemed like everyone in the town. It was quite a while before Harry met by chance the young lady who's family had lived beside his parents, and she offered to walk him to his old home. All the while Draco trailed along behind in a lost kind of way.

"Here we are dear," the lady, Ms. Thomas, said after a short walk through the gathering fog away from the village. She was a very pretty girl, perhaps four or five years older than Harry and Draco with chocolate coloured skin.

"Thank you," Harry said gratefully. They were standing outside a high stone wall with an iron gate. Harry tried the gate, but it was locked.

"Nobody's lived there since your parents, you know. Some rich man bought it, but never built anything there again. Never even cleaned up the old house. They say in the village he keeps it for tax reasons or something," Ms. Thomas babbled.

Harry wasn't really listening to her. He had pulled out the pouch Remus had given him yesterday. On a hunch, he reached in, and his hand closed around a heavy metal key. Pulling it out, he carefully slipped it into the lock and turned it. The lock clicked open. Ms. Thomas looked very surprised.

"Well isn't that odd? The old man never even changed his locks. You really must be the Potter's boy then, to have that key." She touched his arm, "Your parents were very good people, Harry. Its always sad when something like a gas explosion kills innocent people. Who knows why these things happen?"

She looked at him in a vaguely commiserating way for a moment longer before saying, more brightly, "Well, I'd best be off. Come back soon, Harry, Draco."

When she had faded into the fog, Harry pushed open the gate and took a few steps inside. He heard Draco creep in behind him. The yard was eerie, the walls and overgrown bush pushing in on them through the already oppressive mist. It was completely silent but for the two boy's footfalls and breathing.

The short, overgrown driveway led up to the house, or what there was left of it. Harry could see why the Muggle police had concluded a gas explosion had killed his family. The house was nearly leveled, the few walls still standing at odd angles. The front door frame still stood: an arc of stone. Harry's arms broke into goosebumps again as he walked through it. He stood in the broken shell of the front hallway, the knowledge that he was standing where his father had died momentarily paralyzing him.

As if in a dream, he wandered through the house. The second storey had collapsed into the first one, so in one room he found both cooking pots and an iron headboard. At the back of the house he found the living room. Layered over the ruined rug and chipped fireplace were the remnants of what had lain above: a child's bedroom. Another chill went through Harry. In the furthest corner of the room a section of collapsed wall lay face up. It was wallpapered with little Snitches and shooting stars. As if set there by an invisible hand, a baby cradle, completely intact, sat by the hearth. Sixteen years exposed to the elements had taken its toll on the crib, but the name _**Harry**_ was still legible on the footboard.

A hand patted his shoulder and Harry started. He had forgotten Draco was there with him. "Harry," the blond said. "Are you OK?"

"What? Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Harry said without looking at Draco.

"Okay, well, I saw…there are two graves out back. I thought…though you might like to know." Draco actually looked worried about him, which looked funny beside his current motorbike image.

Harry nodded and, running a last hand across the name _**Harry**_ on the crib, wandered outside. Draco stayed inside the frame of the house, wandering around and giving Harry space.

Harry wandered over to his parent's graves. He still didn't feel like it was particularly real. The headstones were simple, but carefully done._ James Potter_, read the first, and Lily Evans Potter said the other. Each had their dates of birth and death. In addition, Harry's father's headstone read "_Beloved Husband, Father and Son_" and his Mother's read "_A Wonderful Woman. You Will Be Sorely Missed, Lily._"

Harry dropped to his knees. It was one thing to know his parents were dead, that he would never see them, but to stand on their _graves_….

After a few peaceful moments as close to his parents as he could ever get, Harry decided he had time now to read Hermione's note. He pulled the envelope out of his pocket, opened it, and spread the paper on the ground in front of him. It was an old newspaper article from a local Muggle news rag.

_**PRICELESS TREASURES: LOST AND FOUND**_

The Daily Peebles November 2nd, 1981

_The Museum of Art admits to being baffled today, as a rare artifact of Sir Godric Gryffindor, a medieval knight, turns up at a disaster site in the (aptly named) town of Godric's Hollow . The house it was found in exploded due to a gas leak recently, killing both adult residents but miraculously sparing their infant son. Authorities are wondering if the explosion could have somehow been involved with the artifact, which was found just feet from the crying baby's cradle._

"_Of course, it's wonderful to have it back," an official from the museum, which had housed the artifact before it was taken over a month ago. "Such an ancient sword sword, it's very nearly priceless."_

_The sword was not the only object taken in the aforementioned break-in at the museum. A sapphire raven encrusted mirror from the same time period was also taken. The whereabouts of this artifact are still unknown. _

Harry stared down at the clipping. 'Wow, Hermione,' he thought in amazement, not for the first time. If this meant what he thought it must mean…

"Harry, I think you had better come over here!"

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDH

Ron and Hermione had never spent a stranger ride to Hogwarts. They had waved at Harry until the train had turned the corner and the platform was out of sight. Next Hermione had to go meet the Prefects and so, Ron being a Prefect himself, they headed for the front compartment on the train.

It was packed to the point of being fairly impractical. In all there were six prefects from each house, plus the Head Boy and Head Girl. Many of the prefects were new, not just those in Fifth Year. So many students had not returned this year, forbidden by their parents. Others had left the country. Others were dead.

Ron recognized a few of the new prefects. Ginny had been chosen to replace the female Gryffindor prefect from last year, who had recently moved to Canada. Mrs. Weasley had fussed a lot about this ("My little girl, a prefect! Oh Ginny!"), but Ginny herself had been horrified, taken a very Fred and George outlook on it, and forbidding them all from mentioning it.

Padma Patil had replaced Hermione as she had become Head Girl. The Head Boy had come as a surprise. Blaise Zabini had not even been a prefect, but Professor McGonagall had chosen him as the Head Boy. Ron knew this happened sometimes, but it didn't lessen the sting of having a Slytherin Head Boy. He feared for Hermione and how she would get along with Zabini.

Other than that there was a new sixth year in Ravenclaw and in Sytherin. Susan Bones wasn't there either, though nobody was surprised. The Bones had been very solitary since Amelia Bones' murder last summer. In her place was Hannah Abbott, who sat with Ernie McMillan and chatted tensely with Pansy Parkinson. Beside the Slytherin girl, Theodore Nott was there as a replacement for Malfoy.

"Wonder where the slimy git is?" Ron whispered to Hermione, indicating the scowling Nott. Hermione gave him a stern, Head Girl-ish look and went to talk to Zabini.

Ron pushed his way over to Parvati. He sat beside her and grinned. He was so glad she was not Lavender, because that would have been awkward.

"Hello Ronald," said a voice coolly from Ron's other side, and he turned to see Padma Patil. Somehow he had squeezed himself between the twins. He flushed. Last he had talked to Padma she had been his date to the Yule Ball, and he hadn't exactly treated her very well.

"Erm, hi Padma."

"How have you been, Ronald?" Padma asked, unfazed.

"I..um…erm..good…I guess?" he flushed darker.

"I see you finally gave up pretending and asked Hermione out."

By now he was bright red. Parvati snicked on his other side, and he looked over. She had her fist stuffed in her mouth. When Ron looked at her she burst out laughing and, to Ron's surprise, Padma followed suit.

"Oh Ron, your face." Parvati laughed. "Don't tease him anymore Padma, its mean."

"I…what?" Ron asked, but just then Hermione cleared her throat and the babble of talk in the compartment died.

It took Hermione and Zabini the better part of an hour to outline the new safety measures that the prefects would be involved in. By the time she had finished, Nott had taken out a newspaper, Ron's leg had fallen asleep and a fifth year in the back had fallen asleep. Ron waited until everyone had filled out but the Head Boy and Girl before getting up and gingerly testing his numb limb. Zabini said a few final words to Hermione and then he left too.

"You know, Hermione, you could have warned me how long we'd be here. I would have brought snacks," Ron said as Hermione came over to him.

Hermione tried and failed to look stern, "You better have been listening, Ronald Weasley, because as a prefect-"

Ron rolled his eyes and pulled her into a kiss. He slipped his arms around her waist, hands braced on the small of her back. She draped her arms lazily over his shoulders, one hand fisted in his hair as the other traced lines up and down his back. He felt her lick his bottom lip, and he opened his mouth to let her tongue in. He could feel her grin as she ran her tongue over his teeth and then down the roof of his mouth. He moaned. Kissing Lavender had never felt like this, like all of a sudden nothing existed but them.

Kissing Lavender had always been gross, actually. He wondered idly as Hermione's hand wandered down his chest whether she had felt like this kissing Viktor Krum. Determined to make her forget the Bulgarian had ever existed, Ron slipped his hands up under Hermione's school shirt and was rewarded with a gasp. He nibbled a bit on her bottom lip, making her wiggle in pleasure.

"Ms. Granger, are you in here?" Hermione leapt about a mile in the air and straight across the room as Professor McGonagall slid open the compartment door, leaving Ron standing there on his one good leg with his mouth open, looking rather troll-like.

"Ah, Ms. Granger, I was just hoping to run into you here. I trust you have met with the new prefects?" Hermione nodded. "Well then, I wanted to meet both you and Mr. Zabini in my office before the welcome feast. The password," she shot Ron a sidelong look, "is _animagus_, for the time being."

Hermione, still rather pink, nodded again, and then Professor McGonagall bide them both farewell and left. Hermione stared at Ron, whose hair was sticking straight up at the back. Ron stared at Hermione, whose clothes were rumpled and whose shirt was untucked. They both looked thoroughly snogged, and they knew it.

Ron grinned, "Maybe she didn't notice?" Hermione glared at him. Ron couldn't help it, he started to laugh. "What, it's not like she was expecting you to be in there sno-"

Hermione had left the compartment before he finished teasing her. He hurried out after her, but she had gone down the train, so he went to the third car on the train, which he was supposed to patrol with Parvati. There was still no sign of Hermione, so he patrolled...and patrolled…and patrolled. He walked up and down the train car full of first and second years with Parvati for several hours, until long after the snack cart had gone. It was only after the cart had left his car that he remembered he couldn't count on Harry to pick something up for them. His stomach rumbled. Just then, finally, Hermione came through the doors from the fourth compartment and walked up to him.

"Let's go see Neville and Luna," she suggested, still looking at Ron as if he had somehow damaged her reputation.

Ron grinned wickedly, "Yeah, but let's not forget to knock first, because people really do get up to things, alone in these compartments. Or so I hear."

Hermione rolled her eyes at him reproachfully, but her lips twitched, betraying her amusement. It was hard to stay annoyed at Ron. She slipped her hand into his and tugged him down corridor to compartment twelve. There was no need to knock, it transpired, because Ginny was in there already, having just got back from patrolling the corridors. She looked up as the Ron and Hermione came in.

"Hermione, finally! Where have you two been? You better not have read it without us," she said threateningly.

Ron stared at her, having no clue what "it" was, but apparently Hermione knew. She sat down beside Ginny and reached into her robes. "Of course we haven't," she said, pulling out the envelope that Harry had handed her on the train. Ron had completely forgotten about that.

"Let's read it now then," he said, settling on Hermione's other side, across from Luna and Neville. Hermione took a quill from her robe pocket and used it to rip open the letter. Carefully unrolling the parchment inside, she began to read aloud to them all.

_Dear Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Luna,_

_Hopefully you are reading this somewhere nobody else will overhear you. What I have to say to you is very important, but it must be kept secret. It is hard to know who to trust, and right now you are the only ones at Hogwarts I feel sure are trustworthy._

_I'm sure you have been wondering what it is that I am going to be doing this year. Hermione and Ron already know a great deal about it and I am counting on them to fill the rest of you in more fully than I do in this letter. What is important for you to know is that I am looking for a way to kill Voldemort. Right now he is nearly immortal, having spilt his soul into many pieces and hidden them around the country. To kill him, I have to first destroy all of these pieces of soul, which are called Horcruxes. I cannot stress enough how important it is that nobody but you know that I am doing this. Not even the members of the Order of the Pheonix know. Voldemort must not know that I have destroyed his horcruxes, or he will just create more. _

_So, this year I will be searching for these Horcruxes, a task Professor Dumbledore and I began together last year. Since I cannot be at Hogwarts I need all your help in keeping up to date on what is happening there. Hermione, Ron and Ginny, I need you to use your power as prefects in anyway you can to find out if anything unusual is happening in Gryffindor or any of the other houses. Ron, don't fixate on the Slytherins._

_If anything at all suspicious happens, write me a note. In this envelope there are five scraps of parchment, one for each of you. I have one as well, and they work like Hermione's signal galleons, except that you can send me a message. Before you write anything down, say "Notus" to activate the parchment. Then write the name of the person you want the message to go to, write your message, and say "Ensevelir" to send it and deactivate the parchment again. Whoever you sent it to will get the message the next time they activate their parchment, and in the meantime nobody else can read it. _

_I also need you to restart the DA. I know this is a lot to ask of those of you in NEWT year, so Ginny and Luna, you guys will need to help a lot with this. Get as many members as possible. Do several classes if you have to. It should be easier now that we are aloud to meet, but it is so important that as many people as possible know protective magic, in case the castle is attacked. Teach them everything I taught you, and whatever else you can think of. Shield charms, banishing spells, everything._

_Thirdly, I need you to keep you eyes and ears open for anything to do with ancient Hogwarts relics. Dumbledore thought that one of the Horcruxes was something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's. I don't think the object is at Hogwarts, but you might find something in the library about it. It would have been something special, and it would have gone missing mysteriously. Tell me anything you find out. _

At this point in the letter Hermione stopped reading and smiled to herself, drifting of into thought. Ginny prodded her with her toe, and she continued.

_Finally, you should know that Draco Malfoy is staying with me at Headquarters. You'll hear about it from the Order if I don't tell you. Don't freak out, he's not going to kill me. Trust me, I'm sure I can trust him to be civil, though I haven't told him about the Horcruxes, and I don't plan on ever telling him if I can help it._

_Hope to hear from you soon,_

_Harry_

Ron groaned, "_Draco Malfoy_?"

Ginny looked shell-shocked, "He says that he's immortal? You-Know-Who is immortal?" Ginny asked, horrified, "How do you _split your soul_? I mean, _how_…?"

Neville and Luna looked equally horrified. Ron and Hermione filled them in on the details as best as they knew them, about how Horcruxes were made and what they did. Then they all lapsed into silence as Hermione reread the letter, mouthing the words to herself over and over. Suddenly she set it on fire.

"Oy!" Ron scooted away from her quickly as bits of ash fell on his knees. "Why'd you do that?"

"So nobody could read it," Luna answered, her dreamy voice oddly focused. The sounds on the train had changed. People in the compartments around them had stopped chattering, and instead the banging of trunks being lugged off the racks and popped open filled the air. Students were getting their school robes on. It was Ron's cue to go back out on patrol.

"Come on," Hermione said to Ron and Ginny, standing up. "We've got work to do."


	5. Something of Ravenclaw's

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything.

Thank you very much to animeobsesive and MissChloetta for their reviews! It's reviews like that that keep me writing, so this chapter is for you!

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Something of Racenclaw's**

Harry turned on his knees, drawing his wand. He could see Draco's blond head standing in the entrance hallway, staring down at the floor with his eyes closed.

"What is it?" he asked, striding over to the other boy.

"Can't you feel the magic here?" Draco was actually shivering. "There was something really bad that happened here."

"This is where my father died." Harry said, tonelessly.

Draco opened his eyes to look at Harry, apology written clearly there. "No, Potter, something worse than murder. I've felt murder before, but this is different."

All Harry felt was cold, and a bit hungry. "What do you mean, felt murder?" he asked.

"Well, it's more like sensing really, rather than feeling. You can train yourself to sense when magic has been done somewhere."

Harry suddenly remembered how Dumbledore had found the boat in the cave last year. Draco seemed to be describing the same thing. "Can you teach me to feel it?"

"It takes years, decades even, to master the talent. I've been learning since before I could walk, and I'm still not very good. For example, somebody who knew what they were doing would be able to tell you exactly what magic was done here. All I can say is that something really Dark happened, and then somebody put a powerful protection and concealment charm over the whole hall. But why would they do that…concealment charms can't hide traces of magic…?" Draco trailed off.

Harry, however, was thinking hard. At the words "concealment charm", Harry's memory had been jogged again. Dumbledore had found Marvolo's ring because he had sensed the magical concealment charms on that house. He felt like ice water had just been poured down his back. Could Dumbledore have been wrong? His hands closed on the article Hermione had given him. If Voldemort had really had Gryffindor's sword and that mirror have been Ravenclaw's…

The sword was found beside Harry's cradle. Dumbledore had been sure it was not a Horcrux, so Voldemort must have failed to make it into one. If so, he must have used the mirror before the sword. What if he had decided to make them both that night: to complete his immortality both with his Horcruxes and by killing his prophesized enemy? What if, and Harry's blood ran cold at the thought of it, he had used Harry's father's death to make a Horcrux? How long did they take to make?

"Potter!?" Draco asked for the fourth time, laying a hand on either of Harry's shoulders and shaking him gently. "You in there?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah I'm fine. What kind of spells did you say were cast here?"

"Well," Draco said, dropping his arms and closing his eyes again, "there was some really horrible Dark magic. The worst I have ever felt by far. It was done a long time ago, and it's just and echo I feel, so it wasn't done _to_ this place, just _in_ it."

"What else?" Harry prompted.

"On top of that there are several concealment charms and spells, as well as a powerful protection curse. They're old too, but they were actually cast onto the walls and floor of this room. I guess that's why this whole wall is still standing."

"Right…" Harry felt sick. There was a Horcrux here, he knew it. Ravenclaw's mirror, hidden by charms, lay among this rubble. In it lay a piece of Voldemort's soul, that he had spliced by killing Harry's father.

"Really Harry, I might as well talk to that crumbling archway. What is wrong with you?" Draco's voice cut across his thoughts.

There was nothing for it. He had to get the mirror. He needed Draco's sensing skill to do it, so he needed Draco. There was no other way but to tell the ex-Death Eater everything. "Draco," he said seriously, "what do you know about Horcruxes?"

"Horcruxes?" Draco breathed, and then a piece of the puzzle clicked behind his eyes. "You think somebody made a Horcrux here?"

"Yes, and I think I know who." Harry said grimly, and then explained as briefly as he could about Voldemort's quest for immortality and the six Horcruxes he had left hidden before his disappearance. Draco swore.

"_Six_ Horcruxes? That's _possible_? No wonder he's so inhuman looking. He's only got a seventh of his humanness left." The blond looked as panicked as Harry felt. "So you are telling me that there is a seventh of Voldemort's soul hidden here…in Rowena Ravenclaw's mirror?"

"I think so, yes."

"Why tell me this?"

"I need your help, if you'll agree to help at all. I can't sense where it is, or what spells are on it, so I can't remove them."

"So you want me to." Draco looked very uncharacteristically flustered as he ran his hands through his hair. Finally he locked eyes with Harry. "Yeah, ok. I'll help."

"Ok, um, good," Harry said uncertainly. "Thanks. So first we should get the concealment charms off. The protection charm is bound to be a lot harder, because it seems like once you get at the Horcrux, all you have to do is destroy the object and it destroys the soul piece."

"Right," Draco said. They both stared at each other. Neither had the faintest idea of what they should do to get started. "I'll, uh, try to figure out what type of spell the first one is then, but then we are going to need to look up a counter curse. Why don't you apparate back home and get some books from that library on the fourth floor. I'm sure there are loads of books on Dark curses and counter-curses there."

Harry nodded, and turned to go from the ruined house. He stopped outside on the front path and non-verbally set up a protective ward around Draco. As sure as the Sytherin was that he was safe, Harry didn't want to risk it. The blond looked up at him briefly as he felt the ward go up, but then went back to work, shrugging.

Harry apparated back Grimmauld Place, checking around to be sure that nobody was watching him, and then walked quickly up the path. He took the stairs two at a time up to the fourth floor library and cracked open the door.

The library was huge. Harry had only been in here a couple times, but Hermione had used it quite a lot two summers ago to help Mrs. Weasley in cleaning to house. To Harry it looked a lot like a library from a fairytale, but one written by the Brother's Grimm instead on Walt Disney. High wooden shelves covered all four walls, their dark polished finishes coated with dust. Three ladders lay against the walls, made of the same wood as the shelves. When Harry pushed one it slid along the wall, though as far as he could see it wasn't on any slider. In the center of the room several uncomfortable looking chairs and a stiff, dusty couch were clustered around a table. Several books lay open there, and Harry recognized Hermione's handwriting on a crumpled, half-finished essay.

It took Harry over ten minutes to find the cluster of books on counter-curses. He took an armful of them. Then he strode over to the fireplace, and grabbed some Floo Powder from the little pot on the hearth. 'Hopefully my parent's fireplace is still connected,' he thought and then threw the powder down, stepped into the burst of flame and said, "Godric's Hollow!"

He knew something was wrong as he slid out of the fireplace on the other side. A soft, clean carpet lay underneath him, and warm, dry air brushed over his skin. He was inside a house. Not a ruin, but a house; in fact, he was in somebody's living room.

A very shocked Ms. Thomas stared back at him. She didn't scream. She was sitting in a chair in front of the fire, which she had shoved backward as hard as she could when Harry had suddenly erupted from her fire. Harry had come to rest with his shoes just inches from her slippered feet. The silence in the room stretched on, profoundly deep and uncomfortable.

"I _knew_ it," she said suddenly. "I knew it, I knew it. You're one of them, aren't you? Those magicians, those sorcerers. You, you and your parents, you're one of them."

"I…um…" Harry looked at her, dumbstruck and completely at a loss of what to do. Should he modify her memory?

"Of course, my mother denied such things existed, but her best friend Pauline's first husband Dean always did the best magic tricks. There was no way they were normal. Pulling live frogs out of my ears and things. Then he left Pauline and her son for some other woman, so she goes and marries my uncle instead, and they give my mother this creepy house," she babbled, by way of explanation. "I _thought_ I caught him conjuring flowers out of mid air. I _knew_ it."

Harry stared at her, open mouthed, her babble hitting him senseless as a tidal wave. Then he connected what she had said in his mind. "Your cousin, is he named after his father?" he asked finally. "The first one?"

Ms. Thomas looked at him oddly. "Yes, how did you know that?" When he did not answer, she pressed on. "So, I'm right about the magician thing?"

Harry nodded slowly. He was thinking about his friend Dean. He had said that he was Muggle-born, but was it possible that this woman was related to him? He stood. "Ms. Thomas, I'm sorry about your rug. Your friend's first husband, what was his surname?"

"What?" Ms. Thomas gave him a confused look. "Walker, I think, or perhaps it was Wilker….What are all those books for?"

Harry started. He had forgotten why he was there in the first place. He quickly gathered the dirty books into his arms again. "I'm sorry Ms. Thomas,"

"Angelica," Ms. Thomas interrupted kindly.

"Sorry, Angelica," Harry plowed on, "but I've got things to go do. Sorry to bother you again. _Scourgify_!" he added, and the soot swept itself back into the fireplace. Ms. Thomas ogled him, but he didn't have time to explain the Wizarding World to her. Instead he bid her farewell and left.

Soon he was jogging up the road, through the gate and up the path to his parent's ruined house. He was relieved to see Draco sitting on the floor in the center of the hall, looking bored but unhurt.

"Potter! What took you so long? Don't tell me you got lost."

Harry rolled his eyes at the blond, dismantling the protective ward around the hall and sitting down in front of Draco. He plunked the books down between them. "I trust you figured out the first spell then?"

"Took me about five seconds," said Draco in an overly lazy, arrogant voice. Harry rolled his eyes again.

"Whatever, Draco, let's just get looking for the counter spell."

The work was slow. It took them a while to find the correct spell that would break the first concealment, and when they did it was so complicated that it took even Draco ages to get it right. Draco was much more accomplished at Dark magic than Harry was so, while Harry supplied more raw power, Draco could focus his magic better. Together they managed to dismantle the first ward in about an hour. Then they had to tackle the one below that.

Voldemort had hidden the Horcrux very well. There turned out to be seven different concealment charms and hexes on it, each increasing in power and complexity as they got closer to revealing the mirror. It was like digging a hole: the top layer was loose and relatively easy to get though, but by the time they had been digging for a while they were trying to move heavy, wet, rocky clay.

Still, move it they did. Eventually and exhausted Harry and Draco could be found sitting on the lowest step of the half-collapsed staircase in the hall, staring across the room at a small, glittering hand mirror lying face down in the dust.

"Do you think it's safe?" Draco asked, and then without waiting for an answer he got up and picked the Horcrux off the floor. It glittered in his hand. While dust and dirt had collected on nearly every inch of the ruined house, Ravenclaw's mirror remained as clean as the day it was made. It was eerie, to say the least.

Draco was examining the mirror's back. _Vox scientia est plurrimi validus _was engraved around the edge into the bronze, encircling a raven made of tiny, glittering sapphires. Draco turned it over to examine the front, and Harry felt a chill. No reflection showed in the glass face.

A sudden gust of wind blew through the ruined house, and Harry's hand went instinctively to his wand.

"Harry," Draco said, "I don't think we should destroy this."

"Pardon?" Harry asked, confused.

"I don't think we should destroy this," Draco continued. "It's not doing anything, is it? I mean, what's the harm in letting it stay here? Let's just forget we ever found it."

Harry stared at Draco, whose eyes had not left the mirror. The blonde's voice sounded oddly hollow. Harry had a bad feeling about this.

"Draco, you can't be serious. Come on, give me the mirror."

"No, Harry. I don't think you should destroy it."

"Give it to me Draco."

"No. Don't make me fight you," Draco snarled suddenly. Harry reached for the mirror, then jumped back just in time as Draco shot a curse at him. The blonde's eyes locked on Harry's. They were bright red.

'Oh _shit_,' Harry thought, 'What's it done to him?'

Draco was slowly advancing on Harry. "You're going to destroy it, aren't you?" He was saying, in the same strangely hollow, angry voice. "I can't let you do that! _Crucio_!"

Harry just managed to block the spell in time. Heat exploded over his conjured shield, a manifestation of the anger behind the curse. Was Draco possessed? "Pertrificus totalus!"

Draco blocked his curse easily with a non-verbal spell, as Snape had done last summer, and Harry realized with a chill that Draco must be a Legilimens.

'Close your mind, close your mind," he thought desperately, as he dodged a Jelly-Brain curse Draco shot at him. "Impedimenta!" he cursed.

Draco dodged this too, though just barely. The spell gazed his cheek. "Serpensortia!" he cried, and three large snakes burst from his wand. "Oppugno!" Draco commanded, and the snakes raised themselves to strike Harry.

He reacted by instinct. "_Stop_!" he commanded the snakes. They dropped to the ground. With a burst of inspiration Harry added, "_Wrap yourselves around him, tie him up!_"

The snakes turned on Draco and wrapped around his legs. Draco fell onto his back, the snakes locking his legs together and working their way up his torso.

"Get off! Get off!" Draco yelled at the snakes, but of course they did nothing.

'He can't speak Parseltongue,' Harry realized. He went to stand over Draco, and looked him in the eyes. Still faintly red, they were dull and lifeless. Harry knew that look. Draco's eye's looked like those of somebody under the Imperius curse.

'What is going _on_?' Harry thought, now very confused. Was Draco possessed, or under a spell?

"Reducto! Reducto!" Draco blasted the snakes off his legs. They crumbled into dust. Leaping up, Draco bellowed "Verbero!"

A scalding hot whip of blue flame slashed across Harry's chest, throwing him into the air. He slid up and over the half-collapsed staircase, disappearing from sight as he slid behind it. His landed on his left wrist and felt it break, even as his robes and skin tore where the fire had slashed him. Draco laughed a high laugh that made Harry's neck hair stand up.

'Come on Draco, fight it' Harry thought despeately. He pulled himself up, using the staircase as a shield. "Stup-"

Draco blocked it. "It's no use Potter, _I can see into your head_. Sectumsempra!"

Harry, already bleeding from Draco's whipping curse, ducked. The spell flew over his head and sheared a branch off a tree in the yard. An idea had just occurred to him. Just like Draco had said, to help him fight the Imperius curse Harry had _to get into Draco's head_.

"Legilimens!" Harry yelled, throwing all his will behind the curse. For a moment he thought that it hadn't worked, but then the most peculiar feeling came over him. It was as if he were watching a movie in his mind. Hazy pictures drifted through his vision, and thoughts echoed across his mind, but they were not his own ideas. Instead it was as if he was watching a movie of disjointed dialogue and images, all playing in a theatre in his mind.

Harry reccognised the weird emptiness of Draco's mind from fourth year, when he had had the Imperius curse put on himself. He could hear fait whispers of Draco's thoughts, but none of them were loud enough to make out. They were being slowly drowned out and suffocated by other, more powerful thoughts from some other person who was also in Draco's head. Suddenly one of these other thoughts burst forward from the drone, and a harsh voice barked into the silence, 'CRUCIO!'

Harry had blocked the curse before the words had even left Draco's lips. The harsh voice sounded inside their linked minds again. Harry recognized Voldemort's high voice as he commanded Draco's body, 'Kill him! Kill him!'

Harry saw Draco's wand arm rise. 'No Draco, don't!' he thought as hard as he could.

Draco's hand faltered. 'Harry?' a faint voice asked weakly from the vast emptiness, barely audible over Voldemort's much more powerful thoughts.

'Fight it Draco. Fight it. Fight, fight…'

'KILL HIM!' The Voldemort's harsh voice rang through Harry and Draco's mind, more insistently.

"Avada Ked-" Draco began., but Harry blocked it before he could finished.

"Fight it, Draco!" He both thought and yelled it.

'Kill him, now!' The other voice, Voldemort's voice, was impatient.

'No,' the faint voice on the edges of Harry's mind said. It was Draco. 'I won't.'

'KILL HIM NOW!' The voice repeated.

'NO!' Draco's voice echoed through Harry's mind, and then suddenly all the thoughts but his disappeared, as if somebody had switched them off. Harry looked at Draco just in time to see him hurl the mirror across the room. He had thrown both Harry and Voldemort from his mind.

"Reducto!" Harry cried, pointing his wand at the mirror. There was a flash of light and a horrible, banshee-like scream that pierced the air like a thousand daggers. It seemed like ages it screamed. When the last awful note had faded into the gathering darkness, Harry went over to inspect the mirror.

"Don't touch it," croaked a voice from behind it. Draco had slid down the wall behind him and was sitting with his knees up, head resting against the wall. When Harry nodded Draco's eyes slipped closed. Harry walked over to the little jeweled mirror, cradling his broken wrist against his chest. It was nearly unharmed, but just like Marvolo's ring there was a long crack through the center of the mirror face.

Harry waved his wand over the object and murmured, "Specialis Revelio." The mirror did nothing, so Harry picked it up using a corner of his robes. He walked slowly over to Draco and sat down beside him, laying the mirror in front of them.

"What do you reckon? Think that it's still in there or not?" Harry asked the blonde.

Draco looked at the mirror for a second, and then waved his wand over it. He nodded, "It's just a mirror now."

"Thank god," Harry said, and used his good wrist to tuck the mirror into his robes beside the fake locket. It felt good having it there.

"You cut my face," Draco said, touching his cheek gingerly.

"You broken my wrist and tried to kill me," Harry said with a faint smile. Draco was very pale, and Harry knew he was probably just as bad. He stood up, and extended his right hand down to Draco. "Come on, let's go get cleaned up."

Draco gave him an odd look, then took his hand and stood as well. "Cleaned up where, were you planning?"

"Hogwarts I think." Draco looked at him. "What, you'd rather get arrested at St. Mungo's?" Draco sighed, and followed Harry out of the yard shakily. Harry slipped an arm around Draco's waist. "Come on," he said, lighting his wand to keep off the night, "I know a fireplace we can Floo from just down the road."


	6. Bloodlines

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything.

Thanks so much to MissChloetta and Maria for reviewing the last chapter! As always, this one's for you!

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Bloodlines**

Minerva McGonagall had had a rather uneventful first day as official Headmistress of Hogwarts, all things considered. Apart from the usual first year homesickness attacks, some inter-house squabbling and an incident with a suit of armor on the sixth floor, the day had been downright peaceful. Night had fallen outside the castle, and now the Headmistress was looking forward to a nice cup of tea and perhaps a chat with the portraits in her office.

Later she would tell Professor Flitwick that she knew it couldn't last, but for all that she was expecting something to happen, she was still surprised when the flames flared unbidden in the grate in her office. She was even more surprised when two figures stepped out of the fire, and even _more_ surprised to see who they where.

Harry Potter stomped out of the fireplace, one arm cradled against his body and the other around the waist of Draco Malfoy. _Draco Malfoy_. The Death Eater was exceptionally pale, and bleeding from a cut on his cheek. Both were rather dirty, and of course they were covered in soot.

"Hello Professor," Harry smiled tensely, releasing Draco and rubbing his wrist. "Sorry to butt in like this, but we needed to see Madame Pomfrey."

"I, well, _Draco Malfoy_, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall asked weakly.

"Don't worry, he's not a Death Eater anymore. If you wouldn't mind asking Remus about it, my wrist is really hurting and I think Draco really needs chocolate or something…."

"Yes, yes, of course. I'll alert Poppy. I trust you two can both make it to the Hospital Wing?"

Harry nodded, and he helped Draco, who was now shaking violently, shuffle off to the Hospital Wing. After a few seconds of surprise, Mme Pomfrey actually laughed.

"And here I was thinking I wouldn't be seeing you this year, Mr. Potter!" she said, smiling. Harry grinned weakly back. Madame Pomfrey fixed their cuts and Harry's wrist an instant, but insisted that they eat some chocolate and recommended that Draco stay the night so she could give him a dreamless sleep.

"He's been through a terrible mental ordeal," she said simply, but didn't press for details, "He needs to rest his mind."

Harry saw Draco to sleep, then he Apparated back to Godric's Hollow to collect the books they had left before walking into town to get his motorbike. By the time he had flown home to Grimmauld Place he barely had the energy to greet Remus and Tonks before he fell onto the living room couch and immediately fell asleep.

Harry discovered the next day that the damage to Draco's mind was much worse than Madame Pomfrey had admitted to Harry at first. While she was fairly confident that no lasting damage had been done, Draco would need several days in the Hospital Wing before he would be fit to leave.

Professor McGonagall was there when the matron informed Harry of this. "That means," the Headmistress told him, "that I will have to require you to stay here too. Mr. Malfoy is your responsibility, and I do not have the time or resources to guard a Death Eater right now, Potter, though who I would have to protect from whom seem debatable. Most of this school would like to send a hex your new friend's way for what he did last year." She looked as if she were one of them.

"I'll suppose I'll be sleeping in the Hospital Wing, then?" Harry asked, resignedly.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Madame Pomfrey said immediately, "I need my beds for patients!"

"You will be staying in Gryffindor Tower, of course, Mr. Potter." Proffessor McGonagall said easily, "I sent Dobby the house elf to get some of your things and bring them to your old dormitory. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm meeting with the Head of the Auror Office in five minutes." She said, already walking down the ward.

'Great,' Harry thought, envisioning himself explaining to his Gryffindor friends why he was at school but not _at school_, all the while dressed like Dobby. Madame Pomfrey had disappeared, and Draco was still sleeping. Harry's stomach growled, and he realized he hadn't eaten since yesterday morning.

"Kreacher?" He asked into the empty ward. The elf popped into existence next to him instantly, holding a large greasy pot and a ball of steel wool. He glared at Harry, bowing only ever so slightly.

"Master calls me?" he asked, scathingly.

"Yes," Harry said, "I want you to bring me breakfast in the Gryffindor common room in ten minutes."

Kreacher smiled a malevolent smile.

"Only bring me food they are serving at breakfast Kreacher," Harry added, imaging the elf bringing up food from Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party, "and no poisoning it or doin anything to it that will hurt me."

Kreacher stopped smiling. Glaring again, he bowed quickly and disappeared.

Ten minutes later Harry was sitting in the empty common room eating eggs on toast. Just as he had counted on, everyone was at breakfast enjoying the spread for the first time since June. This left him to eat and think in peace.

Now that he was stuck at Hogwarts, he thought, he'd have to find a way to continue his search for the Horcruxes without leaving the grounds. He still had the Horcrux with him, and planned to show it to Hermione as soon as she came back from breakfast. It was more likely than not that she would know something about the artifact. She might even be able to figure out what it had done to Draco, because Harry still wasn't sure.

Other than that, Harry thought he would keep looking for the wizard, or witch, R.A.B. Of the three remaining Horcruxes, the locket, the cup and the snake, Harry felt that he was closest to finding the first one. To do that, he would have to find R.A.B.

Lastly, and Harry thought this would be the hardest of all, he had resolved to talk to Dean Thomas about the woman in Godric's Hollow. He could not shake the feeling that this was important, if only to Dean, but the black boy had not quite forgiven Harry for stealing Ginny from him last year. Harry did not know how kindly he would take to Harry delving into his past.

His thoughts were interrupted as the portrait hole opened. Harry paused, a piece of bacon halfway to his mouth. A group of very tiny first year girls clambered into the room, and then stopped dead as they saw Harry. They seemed to recognize him immediately, as one girl nudged the others and pointed at Harry's scar wordlessly. Harry grinned sarcastically at them, and they burst into giggles and ran past him up to the girls dorms, undoubtedly to gibber about meeting the Chosen One.

Just as Harry had sunken his teeth into his bacon, the portrait swung open again. Harry as immensely pleased to see that it was Ron, Hermione and Neville this time. They stared at each other for a second, and then Ron burst out laughing.

"Harry, if you're trying not to go to school, you aren't doing a very good job. It hasn't even been a full day!" He slid over the back of Harry's couch, landed beside him and took a piece of toast.

"Harry, what are you doing here? Not that it's not great to see you, but," she began.

"I can't explain here," Harry said, grabbing his breakfast and standing. He looked at Ron, who had stood too, still munching Harry's toast. "Is the dorm empty?"

"Should be," Ron said thickly, "Seamus and Dean challenged Terry Boot and some other Ravenclaw to a game of gobbstones, so they shouldn't be back for a bit. Unless the game goes _really_ badly…"

"Excellent," Harry said, bid a kind farewell to Neville and lead the Ron and Hermione upstairs. It was odd being back so soon, as he had thought he would never be again. At the foot of his old four-poster bed lay a small pile of his most brightly coloured robes and several mismatched pairs of socks. Ron laughed again.

"Who picked out those clothes? Dobby?"

Harry gave him a grim look, and Ron laughed even harder. Deciding to ignore him for the time being, Harry turned to Hermione and launched into an explanation of all that had happened the previous day.

By the end of the story neither of them was laughing anymore.

"Wow, Harry," Ron said in awe.

"Harry," Hermione said, "from what you said, it sounds like the piece of soul in the mirror took Draco over bit by bit. Kind of how the diary got more and more control of Ginny over time, until he took all the life from her completely. I think, had you not forced Draco to fight, the soul would have eventually taken him over completely, and Malfoy would have become Voldemort with Malfoy's body."

Harry shuddered.

"It's a very clever way to enchant the Horcrux, because once you picked it up you would never destroy it. In fact, you'd kill to stop others from destroying it," Hermione continued. She got up. "I think I'll go see if I can find a book about it in the Library before I go to Ancient Runes.

Ron rolled his eyes at her retreating back. "We haven't even had a class yet and she's already off there. One day I swear I'll come in and she'll have set up a camping tent in the A to R scetion."

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Harry spent the next several days hanging around the library, more even than Hermione, but only because she had classes to attend. He was looking for two things. First, and mention of R.A.B. that he could find. So far he had turned up nothing.

His second query was proving more successful, however. He had looked through old newspapers and school records to find out more about the "Dean" that Angelica Thomas had told him of in Godric's Hollow. According to Hogwart's records, a Dean Walker had attended Hogwarts about the same time as Harry's parents. In fact, he had been on the Gryffindor's Quidditch team with his father the year they had won the cup, playing as a Keeper.

Leafing through old papers, Harry had discovered a marriage notice announcing that Dean Walker had married a Muggle woman, who name was not mentioned. Several years later there was a death announcement for "Dean Walker, Sr." in the _Prophet_, placed by his parents. He had been killed by Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters.

Sure as he was that this man must be related to his friend Dean, Harry did not have proof until the fourth day of his stay at Hogwarts. After Dean Walker died, it seemed that the Walker family dropped out of wizarding society. After some pestering, Harry managed to procure a stack of old papers from Mme Pince. Sifting through them that morning, Harry found and official Change of Name notice in a twelve-year-old _London Bugle, _"to Mr. Dean Walker Sr., notifying him that his son 'Dean Walker Jr.' would be legally adopted by 'Mr. Denis Thomas' and have his name changed to 'Dean Thomas' in two months unless he should place an official objection". This struck Harry as odd because Dean Walker had been dead for nearly five years at the time of this notice.

Feeling certain he was right now, Harry decided to pay Dean's mother a visit. Slyly, he had sneaked a look at the address that Dean sent a letter to his mother to the previous night. It took Harry barely half an hour to walk into Hogsmeade, apparate to the Thomas' London neighbourhood and find the house number.

It was only as he stood, hand poised to knock on the door, that he wondered what he was doing. What on Earth was he going to say to this woman? Then he wondered if he should say anything at all. It really wasn't his business, after all. Why did he care if Dean's mother had never told him who his real father was?

Still, the same feeling that this was important pressed on Harry's mind, willing his hand to rap on the door. Harry decided to trust his instincts; they seemed to be right more often than not these days. He knocked. A slender, tall black woman answered the door.

"Mrs. Thomas?" The woman nodded. "Hi…I'm Harry Potter…May I come in?"

Four hours later Harry found himself in the Headmistress' office once again, wondering how he always managed to put his feet into trouble. It turned out that Mrs. Thomas had not known her husband was a wizard at all, which explained why Dean thought he was Muggle-born. She did not even know he had died. He had simply walked out one day and never returned, telling her that he could no longer be with her and to take care of Dean. She had assumed it was another woman, as her niece, Angelica Thomas, had said.

Once Professor McGonagall had got over his leaving Hogwarts when she had forbidden him to and then causing trouble, she had kindly invited the stunned Mr. and Mrs. Thomas to her office and shared all the recollections he had of Dean Walker the wizard. Dean Thomas, Harry's classmate, was there too, listening wide-eyed to both Harry and McGonagall.

"He was in the Order of the Pheonix the first time it was formed," McGonagall was saying carefully to Mrs. Thomas, "and he told us one day that he was hiding a fugitive Death Eater, though he would not say who, and that he had decided to leave you and your son so that you would be safe. Voldemort would not have bothered with Dean's, forgive me, Muggle wife or half-blood son. He was killed not long after that."

Mr. Thomas was patting his wife's back, and she was crying silently into her hands. Harry mentally slapped himself: trust him to drag up unintentionally painfully family history. He was practically a magnet for it after all.

At that moment, however, Mrs. Thomas looked up, "Thank you s-so m-much for telling me Minerva, Harry. It's comforting to know he never stopped loving me or Dean, even after so m-many years. I'm s-sorry I n-never told you D-Dean," she looked tearfully at her son.

Dean was still looking at Professor McGonagall, but at his mother's words he turned. His face was full of an unexpected, blazing pride. "It's OK Mum," he said, "you didn't know the real story yourself anyway. It's great to know my biological father as such a brave man, instead of as a cheater."

"Oh, wait until I tell Angelica," said Mrs. Thomas, a faint smile on her face, "she always knew something was funny about Dean's magic tricks, they were almost real magic, she said."

Her husband and son laughed, but McGonagall said quickly, "You can't tell your sister, she's a Muggle. She doesn't know about magic yet, does she?"

"No. No, I suppose not."

Harry cleared his throat. He had avoided mentioning his run-in with Angelica until now, but knew that the truth would come out sooner or later anyway. They all looked at him. "She may, actually."

McGonagall rounded on him. "May _what_, Potter?"

"Um, know. About…magic." He scratched his nose and looked at the floor. He explained awkwardly of his meeting with Dean's cousin. By the end of the story McGonagall looked halfway between amused and livid.

"Potter, seeing as you are not a member of Gryffindor house, or a student enrolled at my school I cannot punish you short of handing you over to the authorities." Everyone in the room, not just Harry, began to protest immediately. McGonagall sighed, "Which of course I am not going to do, but I must warn you Potter, try to stay on the right side of the law. Once again the Ministry seems to want to get on your good side and are letting you get away with breaking minor laws, but do not give them enough material for them to blackmail you. Do you understand me?"

Harry nodded, mollified. Just then there was a bit of a flurry of movement as a former Headmaster that Harry knew was called Everard dashed back into his portrait among the others along the wall.

"Excuse me Professor McGonagall, but the Minster has just dissapparated from the Ministry, he'll be here in a moments. It seems there has been a goblin rebellion in the North, that is to say up here, and so he wants to talk to you about additional security," the little man said, looking apologetically at Harry and the Thomas family.

"Oh my, well thank you Everard," McGonagall's eyes twitched to the window, as if expecting to see an army of goblins marching up the lawn. "Mrs. Thomas, if you wish I can send summons to your neice, as well as your ex-husband's siblings. Do you wish to speak to them?"

Mrs. Thomas nodded tremulously, Dean's head bobbing empathetically beside her. McGonagall got to her feet, and everyone followed suit.

"Lovely," said McGonagall distractedly, eyes on the window again. This time something really was striding up the lawn, but it was not Goblins. It was Rufus Scrimgeour. "We have a perfect room up on the seventh floor that I'm sure can suit itself to your needs. Mr. Thomas," McGonagall looked at Dean, and she was definitely smiling now, "I believe you know the place?"

Harry knew she was talking about the Room of Requirement, and smiling at the fact that Dean knew of the room because of his involvement in the DA two years previously. The Minster was nearly at the oak front doors to the castle. "Professor," Harry asked, "may I go back to the hospital wing now?"

McGonagall nodded, escorting Dean and his parents out of the room. Harry ducked out after them. Hearing the Minster's delegation coming up the stairs on the other side of the hall, Harry quickly turned tail and ducked behind a tapestry. He ran two flights up the concealed stair behind it, arrived in the third floor Charms corridor and slowed to a walk. At the end of the hall were the large double doors leading into the hospital wing.

The lunch bell rang, and Harry jumped a bit. Sixth year students streamed out from Flitwick's class and away from him. Harry spotted Ginny's bright mane in the crowd, but she did not look around. Not for the first time that week, Harry was suddenly overwhelmed by how separate he was from the school. Last year that bell would have sent him scurrying off to lunch at Gryffindor table. Last year he would have called out to Ginny and walked hand-in-hand down with her.

This year Harry turned instead toward the double doors again. Pushing them open, he entered the brightly lit ward. He was met with a surprise.

"Potter, come here! I'm bored!" A voice said loudly as he entered. It was Draco, awake and smiling for the first time in days. Harry strode down the ward.

"Draco! When did you wake up?" He plunked himself into the chair beside Draco's bed.

"Only just a few hours ago. What the bloody hell did you do to me Potter? Pomfrey says you won't tell her a thing."

Harry hesitated, "How much to you remember? Do you know…why we were there?"

Draco nodded darkly, "Yeah, that I remember. I remember removing all the spells, looking at that mirror, and then nothing else until this morning."

Harry explained for severa minutes all that had transpired in Godric's Hollow. Draco listened carefully. At the end he asked, "So we _did_ destroy it then?"

Harry pulled the mirror out of his pocket. Hermione had examined it carefully these last few days, but had returned it yesterday with assurances it was no longer dangerous. Draco took it warily. Several seconds passed as Draco held the mirror above his face and stared at it, and Harry stared at Draco.

Attempting to get a better look at the mirror, Draco sat up. Harry gasped. There were two long scars across Draco's chest from shoulder to hip. They were old scars, and well healed, but they must have been horrible cuts at one point. They looked like the cross on an old soldier's uniform.

"Draco," Harry breathed, "who did that to you?" In his mind he saw Voldemort, Snape, even Lucius Malfoy, wands raised menacingly over a defenseless Draco.

Draco was looking at him oddly. After several long moments he said quietly, "It was you, Harry. Last year."

Even as he said the words, Harry remembered. Remembered Draco crying in Myrtle's bathroom, remembered them dueling, and remembered using the Prince's _Sectumsempra_.

Without thinking about it he reached out to touch the scar near Draco's right shoulder. A shock of adrenaline went through him, and his stomach dropped at the contact. Horrified fascination flooded him as his fingers touched the pale pink line, raised ever so slightly from the rest of Draco's soft skin. The blonde's eyes fluttered closed.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, "I didn't know what the curse would do."

Draco opened his eyes, and Harry noticed his pale cheeks were flushed. Still, he looked stern. "You tried out a spell you didn't know the effects of? Potter you idiot. It was probably just written down somewhere wasn't it."

"In my potion's textbook," Harry nodded. "Or I guess I should say, Snape's old textbook."

Draco's face burst into a grin, "So _that's_ how you got so good at potions all of a sudden! Father couldn't _believe_ I was doing more poorly than you…"

His grin faded, and Harry wondered what Lucius Malfoy had done to his son for getting such poor results. He traced his fingers back up Draco's scar and then squeezed his should again. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be Harry," Draco said, a soft smile appearing on his face again. "You saved my life this summer, and it sounds like you did it again a few days ago. I owe you."

Draco was looking at him intently. Harry flushed; he had still not released Draco's shoulder. He went to drop his hand, but Draco caught it with one of his own. Linking their fingers, Draco used his other hand to pull Harry a bit closer by his robes. Now Harry knew he was blushing. What was Draco doing?

The hand fisted in his robes slid up his chest and cupped behind his head, and Harry understood. A thrill of fear and excitement went through him. Draco stared at him for another moment before gently curling his fingers in Harry's tangle of hair and pulling him the rest of the way forward.

Their lips touched gently, and Harry thought his mind might explode from the overload of emotion rushing through him. He unconsciously brought his free hand to rest on the small of Draco's back. The blonde licked Harry's lower lip, making him shiver. He slid his fingers under the light cotton shirt Draco was wearing, spreading his fingers across the other boy's warm back.

The hospital wing door banged open, and Harry leapt up. Draco snatched the nearest magazine and brought it up to hide his face, and Harry resumed the chair, trying to look as bored as his felt he respectably should have been.

Madame Pomfrey came in, holding several books and a bottle of blue potion. Her eyes swept the scene, from the ruffled and blushing Harry to Draco, who was reading _Witch Weekly_ upside-down. Apparently deciding not to ask, she smiled instead, "Hello, Mr. Potter! As you can see Mr. Malfoy is awake. He has shown great improvement, and he will indeed have no lasting damage, though he has no memory of what happened to him as yet."

Harry smiled, "That's great, thank you Madame Pomfrey."

"All in a day's work my boy," she said, looking gratified either way. "Now, Mr. Malfoy, it is time for you to take a sleeping potion."

"Draco emerged from behind his magazine and protested that he had slept enough in the last few days. When the matron refused to give in, he sent Harry a look, and mouthed _we need to talk_ at him. Harry was glad to see some of the same confusion and fear he was feeling reflected in the blonde's eyes, and he nodded.

"Well, Madame Pomfrey, I'll just be off to the library. You should know that the Minister is here right now, so perhaps the curtains ought to be pulled on his bed. Bye, Draco." Harry grinned goofily at them both and then, feeling pleased but confused, left the ward.


	7. Building an Army

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything.

Thanks to Maria for reviewing (again!) and to Munku-JGSPTV as well (all I have to say is he must have been hiding somebody Voldemort really didn't like...), this chapter is for you two!

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Building an Army**

Harry lay awake all night, wondering what had happened in the Hospital Wing. He tossed and turned, unsure how he was going to face Draco tomorrow. What if the other boy wanted to kiss Harry again? Did Harry want him to?

The debate that had been silently going in the depths of Harry's mind for over a month, renewed at Draco's every sidelong glance and the outbreak of goosebumps that followed, was raging full blown now. Was he gay? Seamus had once told him that people sometimes felt attracted to one other person of the same sex, even if they weren't gay. He said it was just hormones. Harry wasn't sure it was. He couldn't deny how much he liked the idea of kissing Draco again, but at the same time the thought scared him witless.

All thought of kissing was driven from Harry's head the next day, however. It seemed that Professor Slughorn had finally caught wind that Harry was in the school, and he was standing out front of the Great Hall the next morning waiting for him.

"Harry, m'boy!" He boomed as soon and he laid eyes on Harry. "Splendid to see you, splendid indeed! When the Headmistress informed us you were not to return this year, you cannot imagine my disappointment. Losing my best student and greatest party guest all in one, what a blow!"

Slughorn slung his arm over Harry's shoulders and began steer him from the Entrance Hall and down the stairs to the dungeon. "When I heard that you were here, well I summoned up all the members of my club to welcome you! Professor McGonagall has given us special permission to have a little breakfast party in the dungeons. It's just the old crowd, you know. You charming friend Hermione will be there, not to mention the ever-lovely Ms. Weasley….?"

Harry tried to imagine Ron's face as he sat up in the Great Hall alone, picking at his eggs and sausage. He had no choice but to nod and allowed himself to be steered into his old potion's classroom. The desks had been pushed together into make-shift tables and the whole dungeon had been gaily decorated. Amid the bright tablecloths and cheerful-looking centerpieces were the twelve-or so members of the Slug Club, al looking thoroughly unhappy about being there so early. Hermione waved Harry over.

"Hello Harry!" She said brightly, earning her a withering look from Neville, who appeared to have finally made the cut for the Slug Club this year after his participation in the fight at Hogwarts last year. However, Ron and Luna, who were also in the fight, were notably absent.

Hermione had a particular gleam in her eye that told Harry she had something to talk to him about, but could not at the moment. Instead he was forced to endure three quarters of an hour of mindless chatter at the hands of Melinda Bobbin and another new addition who, to Harry's great shock, turned out to be a cousin of the Weasley's.

"Her father is a squib, an accountant in Hertfordshire. Mum's told us we have to look after her, even if she is in Sytherin." Ginny mimed gagging over her potatos and shot the strawberry-blond haired girl a look of dislike.

It took a very long time for everyone to finish their breakfasts, and for Slughorn to finish his final impressive speech about how they were all rising stars destined for greatness. By the time that Slughorn let them all go, Harry was beginning to think that this was really a punishment that McGonagall had constructed for him because of the Thomas incident.

As soon as they managed to duck out into the hall, Hermione grabbed Harry's hand and tugged him into an abandoned room. It took Harry only a moment to recognize where they were and a wave of anger went over him. It was Snape's office, exactly the same as it had been when the man had fled it last spring. Hermione shut the door, and they were left in a near darkness. She seemed register their location a few moments after Harry and she quickly sent him an apologetic look. Whatever it was she had to talk about, it had nothing to do with Snape.

"Harry, I just wanted you to know," she began hurriedly, as the bell for class rung in the corridor. "Ron and I have reformed the DA. There are a few new members, especially in the lower years. Dean Thomas has been particularly vehement in recruiting members in the last few days, for some reason. We don't know yet who's going to teach…"

"You are." Harry interrupted her, "and Ginny and Ron. Together you guys have more than the required amount of skill, knowledge and instinct."

Hermione looked apprehensive, but they could hear students queuing at the potion's classroom doors and the need to get to class was obviously pressing on her. "Ok Harry, we'll teach. I just thought you'd like to know we'd re-formed. Got to go!"

She turned and left quickly. As the door slid closed again behind her, Harry was left in darkness to think. It was several moments before he realized that the light from the dirty window in the door was not the only thing lighting the room. A faint green glow was hitting the wall opposite him and casting his shadow faintly up the door. He turned to find he source of the light. It was coming from a stained glass cabinet behind Snape's old desk, and with a flash of recognition Harry realized what it was, even before he threw open the cabinet doors. It was a small pensieve, glitering and sinister, lying on the middle shelf. It's contents swirled without any real substance, somewhere between gas and liquid but clearly neither.

'It must be Snape's' he thought, 'Why else would it be in his office?' He knew Snape had borrowed Dumbledore's pensieve in his fifth year, so perhaps he had gotten one since then? It would certainly help him keep his incriminating thoughts safe from Voldemort…or Dumbledore. Now that Harry though of it, why had Snape, the accomplished Occlumens, needed to take memories out to prevent Harry from seeing them in his lessons, when he could keep both Dumbledore and Voldemort out of his mind without issue?

Excitement flared through Harry as he looked at it. Snape's memories, his most private experiences, lay before him. Remembering how important a Death Eater Snape was, how the other Death Eaters had obeyed him on the tower, Harry was struck with a wonderful sense of hope. Could Snape's memories tell him anything that might help with his search for the Horcruxes?

Harry picked the tiny pensieve from its shelf and settled it on the desk. Taking the chair behind the desk, Harry flicked his wand at the torches on the wall and murmured "_Lumos_!" Light burst through the office, making Harry squint a bit as he stared down at the pensieve. He had no idea how to start. He had never actually looked though a pensieve for a thought. Either he had been guided or he had fallen into a memory at random.

Vaguely remembering Dumbledore shaking his pensieve to bring forth the memory of Caractacus Burke, Harry seized either side of the pensieve and jiggled it nervously. Nothing happened.

'Perhaps,' Harry thought, 'it only works when you know what memory you are looking for?' Giving the little bowl another shake, Harry focused his mind completely and singly on one idea: Horcrux. He willed the pensieve to show him a memory of Snape's about Horcruxes.

Nothing happened for several long moments, and Harry was beginning to gloomily conclude that Snape must simply never have heard tell of Horcruxes. Disappionted, Harry leant back against the chair. Even as he did, however, a scene swam into view in the pensieve. It was a bit unclear, almost as if it was, and Harry felt foolish to think it, a little dusty. Looking down god-like on the little scene, Harry could see the billowing-robed Snape stalking a dungeon hall with another little person beside him, but he could hear nothing.

There was nothing else he could do. Taking a deep breath as if her were about to dive into the lake, Harry stuck his face in the pensieve scene. Immediately he felt weightlessness sweep over him, and he was pulled into the memory.

Harry's feet hit the floor again hard, making his ankles sting. Looking around, he found himself in a stone corridor, definitely a dungeon of sorts, with torch brackets on the walls. Snape was striding down the hall towards Harry, and with him was Lucius Malfoy. Both looked much younger than Harry remembered, and he realized that this must be a fairly old memory. Malfoy halted outside a dark wooden door to Harry's left, pushing Snape roughly into the wall.

"Listen Snivellus, you had better be right about this. The Dark Lord has been looking for Black for days; he won't take kindly to being led in the wrong direction. My feet are already in the fire and you know that he doesn't trust you."

Snape rasped, Malfoy's arm against his neck, "I'm sure."

"Good," said Malfoy, dropping his arm. "If you are right, it could mean great things for both of us."

Snape merely nodded, and in the dim torchlight Harry thought the young Professor looked, possibly, a bit scared. Lucius knocked on the door, and the murmured voice inside ceased. Several long minutes of silence followed this, during which the men stared tensely at each other. Then, still glaring at Snape, Malfoy knocked on the door. The cold voice of Lord Voldemort hissed, "Enter."

Harry stepped forward eagerly after Snape and Malfoy, excited to hear what they had to say, but suddenly a mist was filling the corridor, he was falling upwards. With another jolt, his bottom hit the chair in the darkened office. He stared down at the pensieve.

'What,' Harry thought, 'was that about?' What had he learned? Just that Snape and Malfoy didn't seem to get along very well in the past. Lucius had even used Harry's father's pet name for Snape. Still, it seemed as if this memory had been discarded not because it was dangerous, but because it was useless.

Disappointed, but feeling a nagging suspicion that he had missed out on something, Harry stood. He picked the pensieve from the desk, deciding that he would have another try at it later. First he would ask Hermione more about how pensieves worked.

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Late September faded quickly into October, and the sky became grey and overcast more often than not. Draco was discharged from the hospital several days after Dean's family visit, and he and Harry came home, awkwardly, together. The boys avoided each other as much as possible, both so afraid of messing up their friendship that they forgot to have one. Despite Draco's parting words that day, they never talked about what had happened.

Life back at Grimmauld Place was getting busier again. Remus and Tonks were living there full time and, at Harry's suggestion, the place was being returned to Order headquarters. Most of the Order passed through daily, except McGonagall, who was reluctant to leave Hogwarts. Harry emjoyed seeing Mrs. Weasley, Kingsley and the rest of the Order more often, as it made him feel less isolated from the world, especially since they had finally decided that Harry was old enough and mature enough to be a full-fledged member of the Order. Mrs. Weasley had rallied against this, but to no avail. Even Remus and Mr. Weasley had conceded that Harry could now only benefit from being kept informed. He in turn kept Ron and Hermione in the know using their new parchment messengers.

Draco was less enthusiastic about the mass arrival of a band of Death-Eater-hating teachers and Aurors. There was a memorable moment when Moody first arrived back at headquarters that Draco would not let Harry forget. Moody, upon seeing Draco, had roared that they were under attack and had attempted to hex him. Only Draco's quick reflexes and skill with shielding charms had saved him. Harry had had to step in and jinx Moody, Full-Body Binding him so that he could explain the situation.

The rest of the Order was only slightly more accepting of Draco, though Remus and Tonks were most kindly. Draco demonstrated one day just how much he had changed by offering to brew Wolfsbane for Remus, who had had to endure full-blown transformations since Snape had fled. It would be time consuming and difficult to get right, and Draco willingly put himself under great pressure by offering. Remus accepted on night at dinner, pointedly demonstrating to the several Order members present how much he trusted Draco.

Meanwhile, Number Twelve was beginning to regain some of its lived-in look. Remus and Draco had set to work making the place look as nice as possible. Draco had magically cleaned all the paintings in the front hall, while Remus had spruced up the living room. Harry came in one day to see newly transfigured couches that were far nicer than the previous high-back black ones, as well as a fresh coat of paint on the walls. Remus had even pulled a big cabinet in from of the _Noble and Most Ancient House of Black_ tapestry so that they didn't have to look at it.

Aside from Remus and Draco, Tonks and Harry often helped out fixing the house when they were not working. Mrs. Weasley cooked them dinner everyday, and several Order members, usually including the newlyweds Fleur and Bill, attended each night. In fact, it had become so crowded that Harry had gone to McGonagall and requested that he have Kreacher return to Grimmauld Place. When she had agreed, Harry had gone to the kitchens and there he had found Kreacher. When he had informed him that he would be taking him home, Kreacher had actually smiled at Harry. Just then, Dobby the house elf had come up to Harry and nearly begged him to take Winky and himself with him. He seemed to think that being in the service of a house would do Winky some good.

So, just like that, Grimmauld Place had gained three house elves and become a proper home for the first time in a long time. The days flew by for Harry, as he spent every waking moment entertaining, cleaning the house, researching R.A.B., and defending his friend from Moody and the other Order members. In the free few moments he seemed to have he had taken to sitting in the library and staring at Snape's pensieve. He had had no more success in finding a memory, though Hermione said he was going about it the right way. The pensieve kept producing the same memory over and over.

It was here that Draco found him, very early one morning a week after they had returned, sitting in a huge armchair in front of the fire. The house was unusually empty, with just the house elves scampering silently around. Remus had gone on patrol for the Order, protecting Hogwarts from the rising goblin unrest up in the North Country. Tonks had gone to work before dawn to work overtime. Draco came into the library so silently that Harry did not notice his presence until the blonde had laid his hands on Harry's shoulders.

Harry started, and turned. Draco smiled. "Jumpy, Potter?" he teased.

Harry rolled his eyes and turned back to the book on pensieves he was scanning. Draco's hands resettled on his shoulders, and the words on the page slid out of focus, all of his mind suddenly focused on that enticing gentle pressure. Gingerly Draco dug his thumbs into Harry's shoulders, and Harry could not hold in a gasp. Involuntarily his eyes fell closed, and shivers broke out all down his body.

Above him, Draco smirked, but without malice. "Like that, do you?"

Harry turned to the blonde, and he could feel his face burning as he blushed. He could think of nothing to say, but apparently his red face said enough for the Slytherin. Draco pushed the chair Harry sat in gently far enough away from the desk that he could stand in front of the Gryffindor. His face had lost trace of a smirk now. Instead he looked seriously at Harry as he slowly and deliberately leaned down and pressed his lips to Harry's. They both stayed that way for a moment, uncertain, then Harry brought a hand up to rest on Draco's chest, and the blonde pulled away.

"Are we really going to do this, Harry?" Draco asked in a voice Harry had never heard him use before. He realized with a bit of shock that Draco was scared. Scared of them, perhaps, or scared of rejection. Harry had never seen the blonde look so vulnerable. Draco was looking at him nakedly, with none of the usual mask, and Harry felt a swell of affection for him and the insane desire to ravage him senseless.

Reaching up, he curled his fingers into Draco's soft hair, and pulled the other boy's face closer. The creature in his chest roared its approval. Deepening the kiss, Harry ran his tongue over Draco's, making the other boy sigh. Seized by a sudden mad need to be closer to the blonde, Harry slide as far back as the armchair would allow and then pulled Draco into the chair with him so that the blonde was straddling Harry's hips. Draco grinned against Harry's mouth, and he pulled away.

"I knew you couldn't resist me, Potter," he said, a cocky grin on his face. His hair was tousled at the back where Harry had been messing with it, and his lips were deep pink. Harry grinned back.

"Really, Malfoy? Because you looked pretty nervous to me…"

Draco leaned very close to Harry. "You won't tell anyone, will you?" he whispered, his mouth so close to Harry's ear that his lips brushed Harry's earlobes as he said it. Draco began to kiss down Harry's neck, each brief contact sending jolts of pleasure through Harry. Moaning as Draco reached his collarbone, Harry brought his hands to rest on the other boy's thighs and realized that he was wearing his tight motorcycle pants. Harry laughed, and Draco looked up.

"Something funny?"

"You're wearing the tight pants!"

Draco smirked again and repeated, "Like that, do you?"

Harry smiled back, "Maybe…"

"Admit it, Potter, you do," Draco said, just a bit huskily.

By way of an answer to _that_ Harry did the first thing that came to mind, and leaned toward Draco again. "Just be sure to wear them more often," he said, and pulled the blonde into a searing kiss. Draco's hands ran up his chest and tangled in his hair absentmindedly, and Harry slipped his own hands under the hem of Draco's shirt. The other boy maoned and, feeling emboldened by the noise, Harry tugged the shirt up Draco's torso.

They broke contact briefly as Harry brought Draco's shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor beside the chair. The firelight mingled with the red dawn creeping through the shutters and together they danced across Draco's chest enticingly. The _Sectumsepra_ scars were only pale white lines in this light. Just as he had when they had first kissed, Harry traced his way down one of the scars, only this time he followed his fingers with his mouth. Draco moaned and twisted at Harry's touches, making Harry feel lightheaded. Could really be doing this, and to Draco of all people?

Draco's hand, still fisted in Harry's hair, pulled him into another kiss, snapping Harry back to reality. Suddenly Harry felt another hand, a cold, little hand, on the elbow of the hand that still rested on Draco's leg. He jumped and twisted to see who else was touching him, throwing Draco off his lap in the process.

Winky stood there, wide-eyed and staring at Harry in terror. "Winky is sorry, sir! Winky is very, very sorry to interrupt, sir!" Her round little face was as flushed as Harry's felt. "Winky would _not_ have interrupted, but Master Remus said…"

"Remus?" Harry asked, confused. "Is he home?"

"No, Mr. Potter, sir," Winky said, her eyes still very wide. "He is at Hogsmeade, and he is calling us in the fire downstairs. He is saying that you must come to Hogsmeade, now. He is saying it is very, very urgent, sir. Winky and Dobby was most alarmed sir, and that is why Winky interrupted, but she is very, very"

"Sorry, yes. There's no need to be sorry Winky. Just tell me what Remus said exactly."

"He is only saying that Harry Potter must come to Hogsmeade as soon as he can, sir. He says there is fighting up at the castle," Winky looked positively beside herself.

Harry swore. "The goblins! They must have attacked the Hogwarts!" Getting up, Harry snatched up his invisibility cloak, which was lying on the desk, and stuffed it in his pocket. He dismissed the elf, saying, "Tell him I'll be leaving in a second, Winky."

Draco was getting slowly to his feet, pulling his shirt back over his head and looking disgruntled. "Goblins, Harry? Why would goblins be attacking Hogwarts?"

"They must have joined Voldemort," Harry said, and Draco flinched. "Dumbledore worried that they would, and we've been trying, unsuccessfully, for months to convince them that we have more to offer than him."

It was Draco's turn to swear, "We have to get over there."

Harry stopped in the motion of throwing Floo powder into the glowing embers. "We?"

Draco straightened his shirt and looked decidedly at Harry. "I've chosen a side and I'm going to fight for it."

Harry thought for a moment of arguing, but knew that the only reason he wanted to keep Draco back was to keep him safe, and he remembered all too well how awful it was to be constantly mollycoddled. He nodded and, not wanting to waste any more time, threw the powder into the dying flames.


	8. A History of Magic

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything.

Thank you **Kool-Aid Girl** and **Maisy **for reviewing!

**Maria** and **BBHarry **– reviews are what keep me writing, thank you very much!

As for your question **animeobsesive**, that memory is more important than you think. ;)

Thank you to _all_ my wonderful reviewers, this chapter is for you!

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**A History of Magic**

A bewitched cannonball whizzed past Harry's left ear, forcing him to throw himself into a side alley. He and Draco were running along the high street of Hogsmeade, which was in utter chaos. All around Harry wizards and witches and goblins were running in every direction, some screaming curses and others just screaming. Harry couched behind a dustbin as a spell so nearly missed him that his hair stood on end.

From where he hid Harry could see the utter chaos of the street clearly. Madame Rosmerta was running in floppy slippers up the road, being chased by a goblin with a sword. Aurors, Ministry officials and Order members were battling goblins, who were being aided by many Death Eaters, all around Hogsmeade. There was no sign of Draco anywhere; he had dissolved into the crowd.

Remembering that Winky had said there was fighting at Hogwarts, Harry steeled his nerves. He had to get up there, up to his friends, and the only way to do that would be though this crowd. He stood and stepped out into the street again.

Almost immediately the nearest goblin turned to him and raised his fingers. He was decked head to toe in metal armour, and carried a little dagger. Harry was not surprised at this; goblins were notoriously good metal smiths. What did surprise him, however, was when the goblin raised a wand.

Harry threw up a shield charm just in time as the street around him was lit with a blinding flash and the wall behind him collapsed. Bricks rained off his shield like very heavy hail, and when the dust had cleared the goblin that had attacked him had disappeared. Not wanting to find him again, Harry ran quickly up the road. Several times he had to dodge curses thrown hurled at him by Death Eaters. Harry was sure that at least one of them, which he had jumped over like a jump rope, had been a Killing curse.

As he approached the castle entrance the fighting got more and more intense. There were more goblins up here than Death Eaters, and Harry found it much more difficult to worm his way through danger. His shield charm, while strong, could not hold up against a well aimed and deftly swung goblin sword, and by the time that Harry had reached the Three Broomsticks he found the road was nearly impassable.

A small but stocky and strong goblin came at him suddenly with the largest sword that Harry had yet seen. As the sword hit his shield it glowed blue and sliced through as if it had met no resistance. Harry noticed, with a sickening drop in his stomach, that there was blood on the blade.

The goblin laughed humourlessly, "Your little shields won't help you here, wizard. This blade is bewitched to be unaffected by magic." The little creature took a swipe at Harry's ankle, which just nicked his right leg.

Harry yelped in pain, and without thinking he pointed his wand at the goblin and hissed, "_Imperio_!" Immediately the goblin stopped trying to attack him and stood quite still. Shocked both that he had cast the curse and that it had worked, Harry's mind went entirely blank for a moment. 'Give me the sword,' he thought, when his brain began to work again.

Without question the stocky goblin handed it over, but Harry could see several more goblins turning his way now. Struck suddenly with an idea, Harry turned and took off down a side street that was mostly goblin-free. Slashing his new sword to keep any would-be attackers at bay, Harry rounded a corner and came face to face with the Shrieking Shack. Sillouetted against the still-rising sun the house was particularily eerie looking. There were no goblins up here…yet.

Harry had reached the front door. Raising his wand he shouted "_Alohamora_!"

Nothing happened. "Reducto!" Harry tried, and then fired a banishing charm, then a blasting curse at the door. It remained tightly boarded up. With increasing desperation, Harry tried the windows but they did not budge either. He could hear the fighting travelling up the side street now. Panic rising in his throat, Harry ran his hands through his hair and tried think, but nothing came to him. Out of pure frustration he raised the heavy sword and struck the door with it.

Just as the sword had cut Harry's shield earlier it cut through the impenetrable charm on the house. Startled, Harry quickly raised the sword again, this time aiming for the wooden beams boarding the door closed. In three swings he had the first of them cut in half, and it took him little more than a minute to cut the door free fully. There were definitely sounds of fighting nearby now.

Harry tentatively reached toward the door and, meeting no resistance, pushed it open. It creaked loudly as he entered, the ancient and rusty hinges sticking. Harry suddenly heard somebody run into the yard behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he had the fleeting glimpse of a Death Eater running up the garden before he snapped the door shut.

'Colloportus!' Harry thought quickly. The door sealed itself with a noise like stepping down in a waterlogged shoe. Harry turned and ran to the secret passage to Hogwarts, the Death Eater hammering on the door behind him.

It took him what felt like ages to reach the end of the low passage. Gingerly, he poked his head out of the passage hole and came face to face with the waving Whomping Willow. Reaching an arm over his head, he found the knot that stopped the Whomping Willow's branches and pushed it firmly. Immediately the lethal limbs ceased swinging and stood completely motionless. Carefully Harry pulled himself from under the tree and ran, ducked over, from under the tree. Turning he thought '_Pulcuspis_!' and a jet of orange light shot from the wand at the knot in the tree and pushed it down again, starting the tree waving.

Harrry turned and scanned the grounds. Immediately he saw where the fighting was. Clustered around the front gates was a small army of people, who Harry started to run towards. He had gone maybe a hundred paces when he recognised the figures battleing at the entrance to Hogwarts. Between the prominent figures of McGonagall, Slughorn and Hagrid were, unmistakably, most of the DA of previous years. With them were teachers, Order members and what looked like much of seventh and sixth year. Still running, Harry searched franticly for Ron's red hair or Hermione's bushy mane in the crowd. He spotted Luna, battling a Death Eater he recognized as Lucius Malfoy. He must have broken out of Azkaban, which was hardly surprising without the Dementors guarding it. Beside her were the Patil twins, each taking turns sparing with a goblin that was blocking their every curse with a metal shield and firing curses from another illegal wand.

As quickly as he could he joined the fray. He was gripping the sword in both hands, his wand clutched against the swords hilt below his right hand. Suddenly he spotted Ron, and he swung the sword up just in time to stop a blow aimed for his friend's back.

"Arrrg!" Ron yelled, turning his wand on Harry. It took a moment for recognition to dawn on his face, and in that time the goblin he had stunned re-awoke. Harry immobilized it over Ron's shoulder. "Harry?" Ron asked blankly, "What are you doing here?"

Harry shot a curse out from behind his blade at a tall Death Eater who had appeared beside Ginny to Harry's left. "Remus sent for me!" Harry called over his shoulder to Ron, who had also resumed battling a rather large troll who was holding a giant mace club. Light glinted evilly off the sharp points as they swung heart-stoppingly close to Ron's neck.

Ron and Harry battled like this, back to back, for the better part of an hour. Once or twice Hermione danced past them, locked in combat, and several times Harry had to shoot a well-aimed curse to prevent any of the DA members from coming to harm. More witches and wizards were arriving up from Hogsmeade; it seemed that the battle there had been temporarily won, at least enough for back-up to get up to the castle. Many members of the Order were there, including Tonks and Remus, as well as other people: residents of Hogsmeade.

The sun was beating down hotly on the battling witches and wizards from high in the sky now. Suddenly Harry heard a deafening roar. Turning towards the wall separating the grounds from Hogsmeade, Harry watched in terror as the largest person he had ever seen walked over the ten foot wall as if it were barely there. The giant was at least twenty feet tall, possibly larger. His feet were the same size as Harry's whole body, and his huge face was bigger than the Weasley's dinning room table.

Roaring, the giant began advancing across the yard. Several Aurors and Hestia Jones all ran forward, but they were swatted back by the giant with one hand. Order members and Death Eaters alike dodged the giant's huge feet and they landed, leaving pond-sized dent in the grass. The giant went over to the Quidditch Pitch and, as if it was a garden sign, pulled one of the goal posts from the ground. He began to swing it wildly, knocking one of the towers of seats backwards onto the lawn.

Suddenly Hagrid was beside Harry, fear evident in his eyes. "Harry, you should get outta 'ere. Thas Golgomath, the Gurg of the giants. It ain't long afore the rest o' them get 'ere."

Harry's sense of dread increased. Golgomath was tearing a path of destruction across the lawn, people fighting around his ankles. Harry ducked as a curse whizzed over his head, hit Hagrid's chest and did absolutely nothing. If Golgomath was twice as hardy as Hagrid, they had no chance. Suddenly there was another roar, this time from behind Harry, in the forest.

Grawp was busting his way through the trees, followed by a female giant Harry did not know. Hagrid groaned weakly, "Grawpy, no." He was looking at his half brother in horror. "An' not Belindia too…"

Grawp stamped his way across the lawn towards Golgomath. He was at least five feet shorter than the Gurg, and his friend Belindia was even shorter. Nevertheless they marched towards the offending giant and, each grabbing a Quidditch post, took up a bizarre sort of fencing match. Distracted, the giant stopped trying to trample people, allowing the goblins to renew their attack on the wizards and witches.

The air was thick with curses again, and Harry stayed as close as he could to the indestructible Hagrid, his eyes barely leaving the battling giants. Grawp and Belindia were not faring well, each having been jabbed and knocked over by the much larger and stronger Golgomath. They needed help. If only there was a way that Harry could be twenty feet tall.

Suddenly a plan sprung, fully-formed, into his mind. "Hagrid," he yelled over his shoulder. "Where is Buckbeak?"

Hagrid swatted a few armour-clad goblins away from himself and Harry. "At me cabin, in the pumpkin patch. Why?" Hagrid asked, but Harry was already off running cross the grounds.

Halfway to Hagrid's cabin an arm reached out to grab him through the fighting bodies. He tried to shrug it off, but could not. Turning to face his assailent, he realised that it was Draco. The other boy had just laid out three goblins with a very powerful impediment jinx, and now he grabbed Harry close to him.

"Harry," he said, their forheads touching they were so close. Suddenly he pulled Harry towards him and kissed him fiercely. "Be careful!"

Adrenaline pumped through Harry's veins. "You too," he panted, kissing Draco more lightly back, "Your father is here."

Surprise registered briefly on Draco's face before he was forced to let go of Harry to dodge a goblin with a sword. Harry, remembering his mission, sprinted once again towards Hagrid's.

He found Buckbeak, staining against his tether, exactly where Hagrid had said he would. Buckbeak stopped struggling at the sight of him, and Harry cautiously sunk into a bow. Buckbeak pulled at his harness a couple times and the sunk into a bow as well, orange eyes fixed on Harry. Triumphant, Harry walked as quickly as he dared up to the hippogriff. Stroking the beast's great feathery nose, Harry carefully slipped the tether off the fencepost and mounted the hippogriff.

Immediately the beast beat the ground in anticipation. Harry steadied himself on the creature's shoulders and very gently grasped the feathers on either side if his neck. Tapping his heels gently against Buckbeak's sides, he urged the hippogriff into the sky.

Harry had forgotten how awkward riding a hippogriff was. As he rose quickly into the sky he was jerked and buffeted around violently. He pointed the hippogriff at the distant fighting giants. Looking to the east, Harry saw a frightening sight. Hagrid had been right; the rest of the giants were standing on the ridge just beyond the wall, quite invisible from the ground, but frighteningly intimidating from here. He felt a surge of respect for Grawp, who must have known what he was getting into when he attacked Golgomath; he could certainly see the giant army from his height.

The hippogriffs powerful wings conveyed them over to the fighting three in only a few moments. Golgomath looked up and, seeing Harry on the hippogriff's back, tried to swat them from the air. Buckbeak dodged him effortlessly. The giant's huge green eyes stared up at them.

Just then Belindia whacked Golgomath in the stomach, knocking the air out of him. Enraged, the Gurg seized the little female giant and tossed her bodily across the grounds. She slid across the lawn, hit the side of the great hall and was buried in a shower of bricks as the wall collapsed. Grawp roared in anger and tried to attack Golgomath, but the larger giant held him at bay with the Quidditch goal post he was still wving in one hand like a bizarre fly swatter.

Golgomath and Grawp were stamping around again, nearly crushing the battling wizards on the lawn again. Suddenly a memory of a dragon stomping around crushing eggs surfaced in Harry's mind. Urging Buckbeak as close to Golgomath as he dared. Raising his wand in the hand that wasn't tightly gripping the hippogriff's neck, Harry pointed it at Golgomath's eyes and bellowed, "_Conjunctivitus_!"

The spell hit one of Golgomath's dinner-plate sized eyes, and he roared and fell to the ground clutching his face. Grawp acted immediately, grabbing the huge sword that Golgomath wore on his belt, and raising it above his opponent. Harry turned Buckbeak away, but he could not block out the horrible noise of the sword entering the giant's chest, and his moan of pain. As Harry landed Buckbeak in the pumpkin patch and tied him up, he heard many people scream. Turning towards the lawn he saw a horrible sight.

Grawp had used Golgomath's sword to cut his head off, and now he was holding it by the hair high above his head. Bucketfulls of blood were falling like absurdly large raindrops on the grounds below and allies, Death Eaters and goblins were running to avoid being hit by them. Grawp was shaking the head in his right hand, and with his left he was making a shoo-ing gesture into the distance. From here it looked as if the young giant had a fly that was bothering him, but Harry knew he was showing the giants over the ridge that he had killed their Gurg, and warning them to back off.

This they appeared to do, because it was not long before Grawp lowered his hands, dropped Golgomath's head beside his body, and took several bounding steps toward the castle. Several students had gathered on the second floor of the hole made by the collapsed wall, and were staring out at the battle. When Grawp charge towards them they scattered in terror. The young giant began frantically scooping bricks off of his girlfriend. Hagrid was tearing over towards the pair of them.

Harry tried Buckbeak tightly to the fence again, stroked his nose and tossed him a ferret in reward, and then he started to run back towards the fighting figures near the gate. It might have been his imagination, but it seemed that there were less people inside the grounds now, and there were certainly less goblins. There were dead bodies on the ground, and Harry realised with a horrible lurch in his stomach that some of them wore Hogwarts robes. He ran past a few of these, purposely not looking at them closely, and once again searched out Ron. Within moments he was battling alongside his friend again.

"Good one Harry!" Ron praised him between curses. "That giant could have done some real damage! Well _more_ damage than it already did," Ron said, waving his hand miserably at the destroyed Quidditch pitch.

Deciding not to tell Ron about the army of giants just now, Harry asked instead, "Have you seen Draco?"

"No," said Ron distractedly, "Not for about half an hour. Man, somehow Binns never quite got the excitement of goblin rebellions and giant Gurg battles across in History of Magic, did he?"

"Um, no, guess not," Harry replied distractedly, disarming and then stunning a goblin that was about to attack Terry Boot. His eyes scanned the crowd urgently. The Death Eaters and goblins were definitely falling back now, being driven out of Hogwarts grounds. There were few people actually fighting now. Most of the people rushing around were Order members and teachers tending to injured colleagues and students. Harry saw Madame Pomfrey tending to a nasty sword gash that Daphne Greengrass of Slytherin had suffered. Behind her Proffessor Sprout was crying silently as she conjured a sheet and pulled it over the face of a Hufflepuff student. Harry felt nauseous as he recognised the boy: it was Derek Cresswell, who had stayed over the holidays in Harry's second year and been one of the twelve people who had had Christmas dinner in the Great Hall that year.

Leaving Ron to fend for himself, not a hard task given the fact that there were now only a few straggling goblins who were just coming unstunned and a few over-zealous Death Eaters left, Harry went to look for Draco. He dreaded seeing him lying on the ground or, even worse, finding him much later draped in a sheet. Suddenly his heart leapt. He had spotted the flash of platinum hair that he knew was Draco between two students who were helping a disoriented Michael Corner to his feet. Harry ran past them and weaved around fallen weapons and huddled people to reach what was now the last battling pair.

Draco was standing, wand held ready, staring at the tall blonde man about ten feet from him. It was Lucius Malfoy. His hood had fallen back off his head, and his face was livid. "Is _this_ how you repay me Draco?" he was saying "You dishonour our family and take up with _filth_?"

"You are wrong Father," Draco began.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Lucius screamed, as if Draco had twisted his arm. "You are no longer any son of mine."

Draco's face hardened. "_Verbero_!" he shouted suddenly, but Lucius parried the curse.

"Draco Draco," Lucius taunted. "Didn't I teach you to block your mind better than that?" Suddenly a jet of red light shot from the elder Malfoy's wand. Draco dodged it just in time.

Suddenly, as if at an unspoken signal, both Malfoy's leapt into action. Draco and Lucius rolled, dodged and aimed with astonishing skill and speed. It was clear they had duelled before, because both seemed familiar with the other's style. Most of the curses they used were non-verbal, but occasionally Draco would yell one or two he had not mastered non-verbally yet.

"_Sectumsempra_!" the younger Malfoy yelled, and Lucius was just too slow to dodge it. The spell cut his ear, slicing the lobe clean off. Lucius howled with pain and rage.

"_CRUCIO_!" Lucius Malfoy bellowed. Draco keeled over on the ground, twitching, but he did not scream. Harry moved to rush towards him, but hands grabbed his arm. It was Hermione and Ron.

"No Harry! He'll kill you!" she moaned.

"He'll kill him otherwise," Harry growled, struggling against them. All the fighting seemed to have taken all the energy out of him.

He was wrong. Lucius walked slowly over to his writhing son. Standing over him, the evil man began to laugh harshly. "Like that do you Draco?"

Draco was shaking and twitching violently still, but the sound of his father's laughter seemed to have focused his mind.

Lucius was still taunting, "You must get this troublesome streak from your mother. She disobeyed our Lord too. It's funny actually, I killed her just as I am about to kill you."

Draco's head snapped up, horror and fury mingled in his eyes. "Avada Kedavra," he rasped.

The jet of green light hit Lucius at point blank range. The faint sound of death rushed across the grass, and the man fell, his face still twisted into a sadistic smile. Draco stopped twitching and sat, legs splayed out in front of him, on the grass motionless.

Ron and Hermione let go of Harry, and he jerked forward so fast that he nearly fell over. Stumbling, he fell to his knees in front of Draco, and wrapped hi arms around the stunned boy's shoulders. For a moment Draco did nothing, then he leaned into Harry's embrace, looping his arms around his waist. Suddenly the Slytherin began to cry, silently as he had in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom over a year ago.

"I've got no parents," he whispered into Harry's neck. "I've got no parents anymore."

"I know," Harry whispered back.


	9. Parseltongue

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything.

Thank you to **Maisy**, **animeobsesive** and **twistedlife3000** for leaving me such nice reviews. I'm SO glad you guys liked the last chapter, it took _forever_ to write. :)

As a side note, I'm going to get very busy soon, so updates will be (much?) less frequent for a while. Please don't forget me (though I have a feeling that you might be reading Deathly Hallows obsessivly anyway...as will I)! Enjoy this chapter in the meanwhile. :)

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Parseltongue**** and Presents**

The aftermath of the battle at Hogwarts lasted over a month. Draco spent another few days in the hospital wing, being force-fed chocolate by the well-meaning matron until he was nearly sick to his stomach. Harry personally felt that Draco would have been much better off recovering at home. The hospital wing, apart from being full of people who thought he was a Death Eater, was home to so many people with horrible injuries. Of the students, only the most severely wounded were sent to St. Mungo's, which was itself flooded with new patients.

Unsurprisingly, many students were pulled out of school in the days after the battle. Mandy Brocklhurst's mother caused a scene by having a shouting match with her on the grounds when Mandy wanted to remain to help. Mandy's mother won this battle, and Mandy and her younger sister were hurried away the next day. On the other hand, the Patil twins convinced their parents that they would be safe to stay, reminding their distraught mother that they had just fought in the most dangerous battle in a decade and been just fine.

Harry decided to stay and help rebuild the castle and Quidditch pitch, so he was once again staying in Gyrffindor Tower, where he was later joined by Draco. The boys in Harry's dorm were not happy about this, but they quickly accepted that Draco would simply not be safe in Slytherin right then. The damage to the Great Hall took almost a week to repair, during which the students had to eat all their meals in their first class of the day. The human damage took much longer and was much harder to repair.

Belindia the giant had succumbed to her intense head injuries the day after the battle and Hagrid, Grawp and some other teachers had buried her under the pumpkin patch. Both brothers could be frequently seen breaking into tears, though Grawp especially was a great help in repairing the damaged castle even though he was grieving.

Two sixth year students that Harry had known only by face had been struck with the Killing Curse, and others like Daphne Greengrass had long roads to recovery ahead of them. Most horrible were the injuries not caused by curses. Several students, including Zacharias Smith, had been killed by swords and the other weapons that the goblins had attacked with. Hestia Jones, of the Order, had been killed when Golgomath had swatted her into the wall of the castle. Gawain Robards, head of the Auror Office, and Professor Vector had been crushed during the giant's fighting. Hermione was rarely seen anymore without tears in her eyes; Professor Vector had been one of her favourite teachers.

Perhaps the worst backlash, however, came from the death of Derek Cresswell. Harry had not known it, but his father was head of the Goblin Liaison Office. It transpired that Dirk Cresswell had been taking an unauthorized and unscheduled holiday, which had meant that it took the Ministry much longer to know how to respond to a goblin crisis. Without Ministry support it had been down to the students of Hogwarts, including Derek, to defend their castle. Now the poor Cresswells were facing burying their son and an inquiry at the Ministry. For the meantime, Cuthbert Mockridge was promoted to Head of the Office and given the impossible task of trying to liaise with a group of creatures who there were at war with.

Winter was upon them before all repairs were finished and even more new security measures had been put into place at Hogwarts. McGonagall decided to cancel end-of-term tests and send the students home early for the holidays. Harry, Hermione and the Weasley's all packed and headed to Number Twelve in mid-December. Along with them came their Slytherin cousin, Mafalda, and Draco. By then even Ron had, grudgingly, accepted Draco as a part of his life. Harry rather thought that Ron had been more affected by watching Draco kill his father than he had let on.

Winky and Dobby had been very busy while Harry had been away. The house was nearly spotless when he arrived from Hogwarts, and Harry hardly believed Kreacher had anything to do with it. Dobby had been right about Winky too; now that she had a new master to serve, she was much happier. Harry noticed she was wearing a tea-towel again and when he asked Remus about it the werewolf told Harry that Winky had asked if Remus might not need a house-elf and he had accepted her services. If her smiling, pink face was any indication, Remus had done her a great service.

"Winky has not touched a bottle of butterbeer since Master Remus agreed to be her master, Harry Potter," Dobby confided to him. The elf looked happy about this; though there was no doubt that he though Winky might be slightly mad for wanting to be enslaved again.

Apart from being clean, the house was also looking very festive, as Remus and Tonks, both laid up with injuries, had had lots of time to decorate with the elves' help. To his horror, Harry realized when he walked into the drawing room that Remus had let Dobby decorate the room with his _Have a Very Harry Christmas!_ bobbles. Ron broke into hysterical laughter at the sight of them while Harry assured Dobby that 'no, he wasn't upset' and 'yes, they were lovely'.

About five days into the extended holiday, Harry walked in on Hermione in the library, where she was staring down into Snape's pensieve. When he told her of what he had been doing with it, Hermione scolded him.

"Harry," she said patiently, "A pensieve recreates a moment _completely_. Just because Snape and Malfoy were not talking about Horcruxes doesn't mean that somebody nearby to them wasn't. They would have just have had to been in ear shot of Snape to appear in the memory. Try it again."

She gave him one last pitying look before she left to go help Mrs. Weasley with breakfast. 'Of course!' Harry thought, remembering how he had been able to listen to his father and Sirius in Snape's other memory even though Snape probably had not being paying attention to them. Quickly he strode to the right side of the desk and, focusing hard on the memory he wanted to visit, he dipped his face into the pensieve.

Harry landed in the stone corridor again. Snape was striding down the hall towards Harry with Lucius Malfoy. Malfoy halted outside a dark wooden door to Harry's left, pushing Snape roughly into the wall. Nobody else was in sight that Harry could see.

"Listen Snivellus, you had better be right about this. The Dark Lord has been looking for Black for days; he won't take kindly to being led in the wrong direction. My feet are already in the fire and you know that he doesn't trust you."

Snape rasped, Malfoy's arm against his neck, "I'm sure."

Harry walked right up to the pair of them, still looking for somebody else nearby. He was standing so close to them he could see the little flecks of dandruff in Snape's greasy hair.

"Good," said Malfoy, dropping his arm. "If you are right, it could mean great things for both of us."

In the silence that followed, Harry suddenly heard a soft whispering that he had not noticed before. Neither man seemed to pay it any attention. Somebody was talking softly. With a shock of excitement, Harry realized that it was Voldemort speaking. Harry hurried to press his ear against the door.

"Come here Nagini," the evil man commanded, and Harry recognized from the hissing overtones of the words that they were spoken in Parseltongue.

"I've hidden this one very well my pet," the Dark Lord hissed, in what seemed an almost affectionate voice. "Nobody but I and other descendants of my noble ancestor will ever be able to retrieve it. I am so close now, I have but two horcruxes left to make, and then I will be as immortal as any man ever has been or ever will be."

Voldemort gave a chilling, hissing chuckle at this, "And then who will dare stand in my way Nagini? All witches and wizards will fear and respect me above all others, and I will rule forever."

Harry suddenly had the most horrible sensation of being reached though as Malfoy leant over to knock on the door. "Enter," Voldemort hissed, and suddenly the memory began to dissolve again.

Landing back in the library, adrenaline pumped through Harry. He had to find Hermione and Ron. He had to find Draco. He needed help to solve this new riddle that Voldemort had given him. Running down the stairs two at a time, Harry felt triumph like he had rarely felt before. He had found the memory when Dumbledore could not.

Within minutes he had rounded up his friends and Draco and dragged them into the library where they would not be overheard. Ron had protested loudly at Draco being included, but Hermione pointed out reasonably that he already knew anyway, and the more people they had to work the problem, the better. Quickly Harry retold what he had seen in Snape's memory.

When he had finished, Hermione, who had listened with rapt attention, said slowly, "Well, Voldemort's noble ancestor must be Salazar Slytherin, so it seems likely that the only person who will be able to find the Horcrux is a Parselmouth."

Ron snorted, "Well that's convenient."

Harry looked at his friend thoughtfully, "Actually it is. Remember how Dumbledore said Voldemort handed me the tools to defeat him? Maybe this is one of those times?"

"Maybe it's in the Chamber of Secrets," Ron suggested.

Now it was Draco's turn to laugh, which caught Hermione and Ron completely off guard. "Weasley, you don't think he would have hidden _two_ Horcruxes in the same place, so you?

"Oh, right, I guess not," Ron said, looking put out.

Hermione was looking thoughtful. Harry had the feeling something brilliant was coming. Sure enough she bit her lip and said, "You know Harry, snakes are associated in mythology with immortality. When they bite their tails they form never-ending circles, and they can shed their skin and be 're-born, sort of. I would guess that Voldemort knew that and would have picked somewhere symbolic of it to hide his Horcrux."

"Wow, Granger. That was impressive," Draco said, and looked as if he meant it, "Where do you think that would be then?"

"I don't know," she replied. "Give me a little while to read up on it."

With that she got to her feet and began to rummage through the library shelves. Draco rose too, offering to help. Ron looked thoroughly disturbed by the easy way that Draco and Hermione were bantering away. Seeming to decide not to think about it, he turned to Harry and asked, "Fancy a game of chess?"

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Harry found it harder and harder to focus on finding the Horcruxes in the following week. As Christmas approached and he picked out presents for everyone, a sense of the holidays settled over him and he could not get rid of it. It seemed that each time he sat down to research snake lore or to work at all, something would happen. Fred and George would start pelting the library windows with snowballs. Draco would show up and…distract…him. Ginny would come storming up and demand that he go play with Mafalda. Ginny had been charged with being the precocious eleven-year-old's friend by her mother, and she quite resented being a babysitter while Harry, Ron and Hermione tried to save the Wizarding World.

Mafalda, it turned out, was a lot like Hermione as Harry remembered her from first year. Extremely knowledgeable and very bossy would have described her perfectly. In addition to that Mafalda was a Slytherin through and through. Cunning, shrewd and often unkind, the little girl embodied much of what that house prized. Draco and she hit it off right away, understanding how each other's mind worked.

"You don't give the girl enough credit," Draco told Harry at dinner the next night. "She's really very clever."

Harry awoke Christmas morning to find Ron standing over his bed, looking expectant. Mafalda was shaking Draco, who looked as if he might be seriously reconsidering his assessment of the girl.

"Come _on,_ Draco!" The girl was whining, "Aunt Molly won't let me open my presents until everyone is downstairs."

"What time is it?" Harry asked groggily, slipping his glasses on.

"Seven-thirty," Ron answered, still looking as if he was only managing to restrain himself from whining like Mafalda with difficulty. "Mum says you two had better get up, the Grangers will be here soon?"

"The Grangers," Draco looked horror-struck, "_plural_?"

Ron looked at him in annoyance, "Yes Malfoy, the Grangers plural. Hermione's parents wanted to spend Christmas with her, but she wouldn't leave here so they are coming over instead."

Mafalda had hauled Draco from bed by now. "Great," the blonde said, yanking his robes on over his head.

With Ron and Mafalda's encouragement the entire house was awake within half an hour. Mrs. Weasley had made the best Christmas breakfast Harry had ever had, with eggs and bacon and waffles with ever topping possible. The entire Weasley family, excepting Percy, was there. Even the twins had gotten up early to Floo over from Diagon Alley for their mother's cooking. Bill and Fleur had returned from their honeymoon tanned and smiling. Bill's scars were no better than they had been when he left, but they seemed to bother him less.

As Mr. Weasley passed his son the least-cooked piece of bacon in the pan, there was a tentative knock on the door. Mrs. Weasley jumped up and rushed over to the door. There were voices in the hall, and then Mrs. Weasley returned with two people who Harry recognized as Hermione's parents. Their daughter leapt to her feet and rushed over, throwing herself into her mother's arms. Ron got up to, slowly and awkwardly, and walked nervously over to the Grangers.

Harry was puzzled by this for a moment, and then he remembered that as Hermione's boyfriend, Ron was anxious to make a good impression. Harry had never had that problem – he had never met the Changs, if Cho could even have been called a girlfriend, and he'd known the Weasleys since he was eleven. Ron shook Mr. Granger's hand nervously.

Hermione brought her parents into the room proper and introduced them to everyone. Most of the Weasley children just nodded or waved from their seats, but Mr. Weasley got up to greet the Muggles with unwonted enthusiasm. Pumping Mr. Granger's hand up and down, he eyed the cell phone poking out of Mrs. Granger's purse as if he would very much like to take it apart and examine it.

More to rescue the Grangers, and Ron, than anything else, Harry also got to his feet, when the Grangers came near to him. Hermione beamed at him and presented her parents as if she was showing off a particularly good test result.

"Mom, Dad, this is Harry Potter," she announced.

"Hello Harry," Mr. Granger said, taking his offered hand, "Hermione has told us so much about you."

It was very refreshing to be greeted without people doing a double-take at his name or staring at his scar. Harry warmed to the Grangers immediately. He smiled back, "Hello Mr. Granger, Mrs. Granger."

Mafalda had finished her eggs-on-toast. It seemed she had reached her breaking point of patience, because when Mrs. Weasley led the Grangers past where she was sitting she whined, "Aunt Molly, the _presents_…"

So it was that they all went up to the living room. The new couches were even more appreciated now as the eight Weasleys, Fleur and Mafalda, Remus and Tonks, all three Grangers, Harry and Draco all squeezed into the room. It did not help that much of the room was taken up by a Hagrid-sized Christmas tree under which many small mountains of presents were heaped.

Mafalda found her pile before Harry had even sat down. He noticed that it was one of the smallest piles, and he felt an unexpected twinge in his heart. He knew what it felt like to get no presents at Christmas. Suddenly, and irrationally, he wished that he had got her something.

Once the crowd around the tree had waned and people had settled around the room with piles of presents on their laps, Harry retrieved his pile. He had more presents than ever. Remus and Tonks had bought him a pair of protective gloves for duelling. Ron had given him one if Weasley Wizard Wheezes shield hats and Hermione had given him a book on the Dark Arts that had a whole chapter on Horcruxes. Hagrid had sent him a shirt made out of unicorn hair that it looked suspiciously as if he had knitted it himself. Just as he was questioning Hagrid's fashion sense for the hundredth time, however, Hermione caught sight of his gift.

She gasped, "Harry, that's a unicorn hair shirt! Those are so powerful. They're like armour! Who sent it to you?"

"Hagrid," Harry said, bemused. Since when did Hagrid send him armour? It seemed that all his friends were taking his dangerous quest seriously. It was a relief to unwrap the Weasley's parcel and find a delicious batch of cookies and an emerald green sweater waiting for him. He pulled the shirt over his head with gusto.

The last present in his pile was from Draco. Harry grinned at the package, and then sought his secret boyfriend's eyes. The Slytherin was sitting across from Harry on an over-stuffed blue couch. He was turning a key over and over in his hands with a troubled look on his face. He wore this look a lot recently, ever since he had been forced to kill his father.

Sensing trouble, Harry deserted his pile of presents and slid onto the couch beside Draco. "What's up?" Harry asked tentatively.

"They found my father's will," Draco said softly. "He left everything to my mother…I guess he wrote it before he _killed_ her." He shut his eyes for a moment, and then continued, "Since _she_ left everything to _me_, the Manor and everything is mine again."

"Oh," said Harry, not knowing what else to say. "Well, I just wanted to know if you liked my present…"

Draco looked up suddenly, a smile on his face. He tucked the key into his pant pocket and smirked. "Did you like mine?"

"I haven't opened it yet," Harry confessed, holding up the parcel still in his hands.

Draco was looking almost alarming now. He stood up, and grabbed Harry's elbow, dragging him out of the room. Harry turned around and exchanged a puzzled look with Ron before allowing himself to be led away.

Draco didn't stop until they were at their shared bedroom. He pulled Harry inside, flopped onto the bed and grinned even wider. "So, open it," he said eagerly.

Eyeing the package warily, Harry opened one corner. When nothing leapt out or caught on fire, he tore it a bit more. He figured it couldn't be too bad, if Draco had expected him to open it in front of the Weasleys. He tore the wrapping all the way open.

Lying on his palm was a pair of pants, with a note pinned to them. '_Now we can match. Love, Draco_' it read. Harry gripped the pants at the waist and held them out to look at them. Suddenly he realized what they were.

Draco had begun to laugh, rolling around on the bed. Harry sent him a scowl, "Draco, you've given me the motorcycle pants."

Draco laughed even harder at this, but managed to wheeze out, "Not…_the_…pants." Then he tapped his leg with his wand and the jeans he was wearing turned into his motorcycle ones.

Harry gaped at him. Draco was still chuckling to himself as he stood and walked over. "What's the matter Potter, whackspurt got your tongue?"

"I won't wear them," Harry blushed, and Draco smirked in a very mischievous way at him. Stopping beside Harry, the blonde slipped his arm around Harry's waist and pulled him into a gentle kiss. Guiding him over to the bed, Draco pushed Harry onto it and fell on top of him. Harry smiled and licked Draco's bottom lip. At the same time he slid his hand under the hem of Draco's shirt, making him gasp. Harry took full advantage of this, slipping his tongue into his boyfriend's mouth.

Soon they were kissing passionately, Harry's hands running though and tugging at Draco's hair and Draco's sliding up and down Harry's chest and back underneath his Weasley sweater. Harry felt Draco's mouth leave his and begin to kiss along his jaw line and down his neck. Suddenly Harry felt the other boy's hand slide to the front of his pants and begin to undo them. He gasped.

"Draco, what are you doing?" Harry demanded as the Slytherin undid his zipper and Harry felt his cold hands pushing the material gently down his legs.

He could feel the smirk against his collarbone as Draco replied, "Aren't you going to try on my present?"

Draco pulled Harry's pants off of him easily, and then pulled him close for another hard kiss. Harry could feel the heat of Draco's body through his shirt, and he kissed back just as keenly. He had just slipped his hand under Draco's shirt again when the blonde pulled away.

Harry opened his eyes and groaned in protest, but before he could say anything Draco was back, having retrieved Harry's new pants from the ground where Harry had dropped them. He leant over him, his hands pulling the pants on and his mouth on Harry's. Eventually he pulled Harry to his feet and gave the pants a final yank (Harry yelped into their kiss). Carefully but quickly he did them up, and at about the same time he finished they had to break for air.

Draco stood back to survey his handiwork. Harry turned to check himself out in the mirror behind him. He had to admit, the pants did look good on him, not that he would ever be caught in public with them on. Draco slid up behind him, running his hands up Harry's thighs before wrapping his arms around Harry's waist.

They stayed like that, enjoying each other's company and warmth, for several long moments. Then suddenly there was a loud BOOM downstairs, and several distant voices screamed. Harry and Draco jumped apart, and them they both rushed to the door. Harry heard Draco murmur "_Abero_!" and he was suddenly wearing jeans again. Harry copied him hurriedly.

Together they burst into the living room. Remus, Bill, Tonks, Mr. Weasley and the twins were lying frozen on the ground, stunned. Mrs. Weasley, the twins and Fleur were protecting Mafalda, who was clutching Ginny for all her life, and the Grangers behind the huge Christmas tree. Ron and Hermione were cowering on the floor under the towering figure of Severus Snape.

Anger boiled over so quickly in Harry that he had no time to think. "Crucio!" he yelled, just as Draco yelled "Impedimenta!"

Snape turned and parried Harry's curse with infuriating ease. He also dodged Draco's impediment jinx, which blasted Ron and Hermione over the couch instead. Snape sneered.

"Potter," he said slowly, as if saying the name of particularly delicious desert, "and Draco. Dear me Draco, your master is not happy with you."

"How did you find me this house?" Draco demanded, wand held ready. He knew of all the wards to protect against unwanted visitors.

"Good question, good question. How did I manage to find this house again, even if you changed the Secret Keeper?" he grinned evilly. "I did not. I found _you_, Draco."

Draco looked horrified. His right hand went involuntarily to his left arm. Snape sneered, "Yes Draco, very good. The Dark Mark acts as more than a calling mechanism, it helps us track you as well. How do you think that Bellatrix always knew where you were?"

Draco still looked stunned, "So why did you not find me before now?"

Snape shot the immobilized Remus a scathing look, "The werewolf has been protecting you with masking spells. It would seem he forgot to maintain them after his transformation last week."

"But-"

"No more buts Draco, we are going," suddenly Snape lunged forward and grabbed Draco's arm. Draco went suddenly limp.

"No!" Harry gasped and raised his wand again, but he was hit suddenly with the most blinding pain he could remember: the Cruciatus curse. Snape was laughing over his head.

"Pathetic, Potter," he jeered, and then he was gone. The pain faded and Harry jumped to his feet. He heard the front door slam, and Mrs. Black's portrait began to howl. He sprinted down the stairs and wrenched the door open again. Panting, he glanced franticly around for Draco, but his heart sank. The street was empty. Snape had disapparted.


	10. St George and the Dragon

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything.

**Maria**, evil…or not? You never know with that guy.

**Maisy, **sorry about that – trust me, Draco is coming back. 

**QuidditchQuitter,** thank you very much!

Thanks to all my reviewers, these _two_ are for you!

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**St. George and the Dragon**

Harry walked slowly back up the stairs to the living room. Each step was agony and it took all the will he had not to go running back out the door. He wanted to run, to chase Snape, to find Draco, but he couldn't. He had no idea where Snape would have gone.

By the time he plodded his way upstairs, Remus, Bill, Tonks and Mr. Weasley had been revived. Everyone looked at him as he walked in. For a moment nobody moved, and then Ron whispered, "He got away."

Harry nodded mutely, and Hermione came over to give him a hug. Over her shoulder Harry watched Mrs. Weasley and Fleur helping Bill up and Mafalda sobbing unrestrainedly into Ginny's new blue sweater. All of it seemed very far away. In his mind he was still running after Snape, apparating to wherever he had gone, saving Draco.

This feeling persisted for several days. Harry found himself sitting at the grimy windows in the room he and Draco shared and staring out of it with no real focus. He would wake in the morning and lie staring at the ceiling until Hermione came to drag him down to breakfast. On the rare occasions that he went for a walk around the house it's many occupants would send him worried looks. That only made Harry stay in his room even more often.

It wasn't until his fifth day of acting like this that somebody took action to snap him out of it. He was sitting in the library one morning, staring down at the chapter on Horcruxes in the book Hermione had given him without really seeing it. It was still so dark out that when Hermione marched up to him, Ron in tow, she was carrying a flashlight. Harry supposed she must have called his name several times, because suddenly she slammed one of the biggest books he had ever seen onto the desk, shone her light right into his eyes and hissed, "Harry!"

Harry raised his head, trying not to get annoyed. His temper was so close to the surface these last few days, "Uh huh?"

"Harry, honestly, snap out of it," Hermione scolded.

"_Snap out of it_?" Harry said. He was definitely annoyed now.

"Yes, snap out of it," Hermione chided, unapologetic. "You moping around and being angst-ridden isn't going to help Draco."

"Oh so you have a way to then?" He asked scathingly.

"Have _you_?" she retorted. "Has all your brooding led you to a brilliant conclusion?"

Harry hated to admit that Hermione had a point. He had been thinking about nothing else for five days, but he was still no closer to figuring out where Snape would be than when he had stood on the doorstep on Christmas. He glared at her silently.

"That's what I thought," she continued. Behind her Ron was giving Harry a vaguely apologetic look. Hermione wasn't done, "Well, you'll be happy to know that while you were sulking, Ron and I have been researching that memory."

Harry blinked at her, taking a few moments to remember what she was talking about. "Snape's memory?"

"Yes Harry, and I think we may have solved it."

"_Solved it_? You know where the Horcrux is?" Hary asked her, flabbergasted.

"Well, no," admitted Hermione, biting her lip. "We've done our bests to find everything we can, but there just something _missing_…"

Harry felt his anger ebb away; Hermione and Ron had been working all week while he had been useless. He felt he should hear them out. He sat back in his chair, "So, what do you know?"

Hermione smiled, knowing that Harry would listen now, and sat across from him. Ron followed suit. "Well," she began, " We were thinking about snakes, of course, because of the clue about Parseltongue. You remembered that I said that snakes represented immortality? _This_ is what I meant."

She pushed a picture across the table at Harry. He picked it up and scanned it over. It showed a red dragon biting its tail. He looked up, puzzled, and said "But Hermione, this is a dragon, not a snake."

"_Exactly_, Harry," she smiled. "It's a _dragon_. I thought that the ouroboros-"

"That what?" Harry interrupted her.

"That symbol thing," Ron clarified helpfully.

"Yes, the ouroboros," Hermione continued. "I thought that it only applied to snakes, but I did some research," she waved vaguely at the gigantic book in font of her, "and found out that it originally was depicted as a dragon."

"I see," Harry said slowly, "So you think Voldemort is using dragons to guard this Horcrux?"

"Possibly," Hermione agreed, "but there's more to it than that. We think that he might have picked a site in Britain that was known for its connection to Dragons. Hiding his Horcrux in a place like that would probably really made Voldemort happy."

"Why?" Harry asked, confused.

"Well, You-Know-Who loves immortality right? So he would pick a place that will _forever_ be connected to dragons so that nobody would ever question why his connection to serpents," Ron replied.

"_Exactly_," Hermione enthused again, "so we figured he must have buried it somewhere relatively famous. Assuming he buried it in Britain, that left us with a few options. The ones we were seriously considering were Mole Hill, in Galloway, and Dragon Hill in Uffington."

"You'd think it would be obvious, wouldn't you?" Hary asked, smiling. "Mole Hill or _Dragon_ Hill…"

"Both places have a strong history of Dragon mythology around them," Ron volunteered. "Mole Hill seemed like the more likely place at first, because it is actually not far from Hogwarts, but we," he said, indicating Hermione and himself, "thought, like you, that the _Dragon_ part would have really drawn You-Known-Who."

"I had decided to research any Dragon-related stories I could find," Hermione said. "One of the first ones that came to my mind was an old Muggle story called "_St. George and the Dragon_" that I read when I was a kid. I asked my parents to bring me the picture book over Christmas, and then cross-referenced the events and found out that Dragon Hill is called that because it's supposed to be where St. George fought his famous battle."

"So where exactly is this Dragon Hill?" Hary asked curiously.

"It's right down the ridge from the Uffington Dragon," Ron answered, as if that told Harry anything.

Harry looked at him oddly, "Do you mean the Uffington _Horse_, Ron?"

Ron rolled his eyes, "_Horse_. Muggles will do anything to deny magic."

"Harry," Hermione cut in, "The reason we think that it must be Dragon Hill where the next Horcrux is hidden is because it has the same mythology...mostly...in Muggle and Wizarding Britain. Both stories say that George slayed the Dragon on that spot to save a beautiful princess. Then the Muggle version goes on to say that everyone converted to Christianity and lived happily forever."

"The wizarding version is a little less stupid," Ron said dismissively. "According to that legend, George the Gritty managed to slay the Welsh Green that had been terrorizing the Muggle town nearby. The dragon's trainer, a really nasty witch, killed him for it. Sounds a lot like a murderous Hagrid, actually. Apparently she loved the dragon so much that she blasted its image into the ridge nearby, and now the Muggles call it a horse." He snorted.

"Anyway," Hermione said, trying to regain control, "We thought that since the legends line up in both worlds, Voldemort would love to hide is soul there. He'd want to be as famous and revered as St. George in _both_ worlds."

"Right," Harry said. He stood up, "I guess we should go visit then?"

"Now? _Right_ _now_?" Ron asked, surprised.

"Why not?" Harry asked. The urge to run was building in his legs again, and suddenly all he wanted was to be _doing_ something, doing _anything_. He had his invisibility cloak in his pocket and his wand on the desk. He picked it up, saying, "I say we go now."

Hermione looked only slightly less taken aback than Ron. Slowly she said, "Harry, we might be walking into danger. We should bring protection…and weapons."

"We have our wands," Harry said, "and I have the sword from that goblin." He had only just remembered the weapon now.

"Plus, he has the unicorn shirt," Ron added helpfully, "and we have Shield Hats…"

Hermione gave them a considering look, and then decided, "Ok, give me a few minutes and then we'll meet in the front hall."

Ten minutes later they were ready to go. Hermione had put on her travel cloak, as had Ron, and both were looking grim. Ron was clutching his wand so tightly that it betrayed his otherwise-calm attitude, and Hermione was chewing her lip. Both were wearing Shield Hats, and Hermione had a small bag over her shoulder that looked like it was full of rocks. In his haste to _go_ Harry had not put on his cloak, though he had donned Hagrid's fuzzy jumper over his Weasley one and tossed some robes over them both.

After what seemed like ages to Harry, they were ready to go. He shrunk the sword very small and put it in his pocket – it was far to conspicuous to casually carry around.

"So, where are we going?" he asked when they were standing on the lawn of Grimmauld Place.

"Uffington," Hermione said unhelpfully, "But seeing as that's a large area, I think you had better let me or Ron guide you there."

Harry looked at her, confused. "Why would you know any better where we are going?"

Ron looked at him guiltily, "Well, we, erm…visited before. Without you, just after Christmas."

Harry stared at them. _They had gone without him?_ To find a Horcrux? An irrational possessiveness bubbled up in him – this was his journey, not theirs. He glared at them. "Well, them you obviously don't need me this time either do you?" he snapped testily.

"Of course we do Harry," Hermione said calmly. "Why do you think that we came back without trying to get at the Horcrux? We can't do it without you – _you're a Parseltongue_."

Harry blinked at her, then felt himself blush. He had forgotten what Voldemort had said about the Horcrux and how it was hidden. They did need him. Unable to think of something to say, Harry replied lamely, "Well, _good_."

Hermione rolled her eyes at him and grabbed his arm. She looked at Ron and then whispered, "One…two…_three_." At once Harry was being squeezed from all sides by a pressure that was so severe it made Hermione's firm grip of his arm feel like a paper bracelet. The air was forced out of his lungs, sucked into the nothingness around him. With each breath he lost more air, but was unable to breath in more air. 'Like a boa constrictor,' Harry thought, uncomfortably.

Suddenly, they popped into existence again, and the world exploded into being around them so violently that Harry felt dizzy. They were standing on a dirt path at the bottom of a gigantic ridge. To his left Harry could see a white outline of what looked very much like a huge upside-down cat. To his right was a disgustingly long path up the steep ridge that Hermione was eying with an ominously purposeful air.

As if reading his thoughts, Hermione indicated the upside-down cat and said, "Well, there's the horse –"

"_Dragon_," Ron corrected.

"Right, dragon," Hermione continued. "So we have to go up that path there to get to Dragon Hill."

Harry sighed, and began to climb. It was exhausting work, and more than once Harry thought rather bitterly that Hermione could have apparated closer. By the time they reached the top all three of them were panting and red-faced. The hill was very flat on the top, and there was a very large bald spot of exposed chalk on top.

"That's where the legend says that George killed the dragon," Hermione said softly. Even at this early hour there were a few families of tourists. One large American family of four kids was standing very near to them, so Hermione kept her voice down.

"So, when Ron and I came last time," Hermione shot Harry and apologetic look, "we checked out that bald spot, and it is definitely a magical entrance of some type, but we can't figure out how to get into it."

"Right," Harry said, and made his way towards the spot. As soon as he had stepped off the path, however, a uniformed man blew a whistle and charged over.

"Young man! This is a natural heritage site, you can't go traipsing around as you please! Stay on the paths!" The man gave him a little shake, as if to force some obedience into Harry, and then stalked off to his desk again. As soon as he had gone, Hermione pulled Harry around the other side of the guard's hut. They were now hidden from view of all the Muggles.

"Harry, we have to be sneakier than that," she said bossily. She raised her wand and tapped his head. Immediately Harry felt the horrible feeling of a snowball sliding down his back, and knew he had been Disillusioned. His skin took on the exact texture of the dirt below him, and his torso suddenly closely resembled the plywood of the guard hut. Soon Ron and Hermione looked the same.

"Wow Hermione," Harry said, genuinely impressed. "That's really advanced magic."

She waved her hand airily, and led him and Ron over to the bald spot. Nobody stopped them this time. When Harry swung his leg over the rope around the path, the guard continued to stare through him and clean his ear with his pinkie. The American family continued talking as if nothing was wrong. They couldn't see him.

When Harry reached the spot the first thing he noticed was the ridges edged into the chalk. They looked completely deliberate, but also entirely meaningless. Harry was sure that nobody would have got past that guard for long enough to deface the chalk, and yet there were two long curvy grooves criss-crossing the chalk patch. Harry stared at them. They seemed to draw his eyes in an unnatural way, as if willing him to understand, to solve their mystery.

He began to circle the plot slowly, still staring at chalk. The vague outlines of Ron and Hermione were visible only every once and a while as they shifted their weight. They were watching Harry circle. He was about halfway around the plot when suddenly one of the grooves suddenly made sense to him. Inexplicably, meaning rose in his mind. He whispered slowly to Ron and Hermione, "It says '_Name a thing you might send by owl_'."

He could feel Hermione's smile as she said, "I _knew_ it. Harry these must be some type of snake writing…or paths or something, to give us the password. I thought you might understand them. Ok, something you might find in the mail…a letter?"

Harry had continued along the edge of the path. It took him a lot longer to find the exact spot by which the other line was readable, but find it he did. It read, '_Add it to the place of a scowl._' He quickly relayed this information to Ron and Hermione.

"A scowl?" Hermione said, perplexed. "Are you sure, Harry?"

"Yes," Harry replied in the direction of his invisible friend.

"Well," Ron's voice came from behind Harry, "that would be a mouth, right?"

Hermione gave a little gasp, "Yes, it would! Something you send in the mail…must be a parcel!" Harry watched her outline walk right up onto the chalk. "Parcel-mouth!" she announced to the ground, "Parselmouth!"

Nothing happened. No door opened in the chalk or transported Hermione anywhere. Harry cleared his throat, "Hermione, do you think I ought to…?"

Her voice was embarrassed as she muttered, "Oh, of course, yes. I just…got excited. Sorry."

"Right," Harry said. He concentrated on the curved lines in the chalk and did his best to vividly imagine the snakes that had made them. "_Parselmouth_," he hissed softly.

Immediately Hermione sunk out of sight. She didn't even get time to gasp, or to grab Harry. Ron gasped behind Harry, "What just…where do you reckon…"

'No idea, Harry said, "but we had better be following her." Harry grabbed at the air he knew Ron actually occupied, and after several snatched he grabbed cloth. Forcefully he tugged his friend onto the chalk patch, right into the middle, and whispered "_Parselmouth_."

He had the brief, horrible sensation of the sand coming up to meet him as he fell through it, but almost instantly it was replaced by an odd weightlessness. Suddenly Harry felt as if he barely existed at all, and he watched distantly as his body drifted through the solid rock as if it were water. Then, just as abruptly, he was falling through air, very much solid again, and hitting the dark ground with a nasty bump.

They had landed in a completely dark cave. Illuminated by the tip of Hermione's wand only, the cave was low but very wide, and Harry could only hazily make out and arch of stone directly ahead of them. Lighting his own wand as Ron lit his, he could then see that the arch was in fact the start of a long, thin tunnel leading off the cave and down.

Hermione looked very uncomfortable. She was shifting from foot to foot, and looked as if she very much longed to bolt but had nowhere to go. Suddenly she lunged out and tapped them with unnecessary force on the heads, removing the disillusionment charm. Her wand arm shook badly.

"Are you ok Hermione?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Oh yes," Hermione said breathlessly. "I just don't like being underground very much."

"Oh," Harry said, unsure of how to comfort her. They certainly were underground…_far_ underground…and there did not seem to be any exit but the tunnel that led even deeper. He motioned towards it miserably, "Well, I guess we better get moving. I don't feel like sitting here for all eternity."

Ron nodded warily, and Hermione gave a little determined puffing noise and set off. Harry and Ron quickly fell into step with her, and soon they had reached the tunnel. Here they had to continue in single file, for the tunnel would not accommodate two people side-by-side. Harry went first, Hermione second, and Ron last. They walked in complete silence listening for the tell-tale sign that there was anything ahead in the tunnel.

Suddenly his ears picked up a sound that terrified him to the bone: a deep, rasping breathing and the scrape of pacing, long-clawed feet across the stone. He stopped, halting Hermione and Ron, and whispered, "_Nox_!"

Ron and Hermione followed suit, and they were plunged into dark silence. As quietly as he could, Harry crept forward around a bend in the tunnel. He fingers slid along the smooth walls, guiding his way. The noises got louder, and his heart sank. He did not need to smell the rotting meat or feel the unnatural heat ahead to know that Hermione had been right. A dragon was blocking the tunnel.


	11. Into the Ground

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything.

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Into the Ground**

They stood in complete silence, listening to the dragon shuffling around ahead of them. Harry caught a sudden waft of cool air and realised that the tunnel must open up into a cave if a dragon were able to fit down there. Hermione chanced a peek around the corner, and Harry dimly saw her clamp her hands to her face to stop from screaming as she ducked back beside them again.

"How do we get past a dragon?" he turned to her and hissed softly.

"I don't know...I don't know…" she mumbled, and Harry could see her wringing her hands in the dim light, but something else distracted him.

"Locked up…been _decades_…" Ron was murmuring almost angrily and rather loudly under his breath.

"Pardon Ron?" Harry whispered, and Ron turned to face him.

"What?"

"What were you just saying?"

"Nothing," he gave Harry an odd look. "I haven't said anything."

Then Harry heard it again and he realised that it could not have been Ron. The speaker had a thick accent, as if what they were speaking was only vaguely English, except Harry knew suddenly that it wasn't English at all. Faintly, on the edges of his hearing, a hissing sound told him that he was hearing Parseltongue.

"The dragon," he breathed, shocked. "Hermione, do dragons speak Parseltongue?"

Hermione looked up from her wringing in surprise. "Well, I'm not sure," she admitted, "but I suppose that they _are_ a type of snake. So it's possible they _could_."

With that Harry knew what he had to do – just as Voldemort had said, the only way to get past the dragon to the horcrux was to use the skills of Salazar Slytherin. He had to talk to the dragon and convince it to let them pass. Not believing he was doing it, Harry turned to Ron and Hermione.

"Stay here," he ordered. Steeling his nerves, he rounded the corner and stepped into the cavern of the dragon. Hermione gave a little scream and tried to go after him, but Ron grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back into the safety of the tunnel.

As soon as he stepped into the cave, Harry felt himself freeze. It was as if somebody had filled his legs with lead and his mouth with cotton. He couldn't move, he couldn't talk. The creature was huge, taking up half of the cave easily even with its dark green-brown wings folded over it's back. Its huge claws scraped the floor as it turned to look at Harry and he recognised the creature as a Welsh Green.

The dragon's huge protuberant eyes stared down at Harry. For a second Harry felt sure that the dragon looked confused, but then it let out a deafening roar and several narrow jets of fire that Harry had to dodge to avoid.

"_Wait, wait!_" he yelled urgently to the irate dragon. The dragon hesitated for a moment before attacking him again. This time Harry was not so lucky, and a jet of fire lit his robes on the left side. He yelped as the heat seared around his legs before he could throw the robes off. Franticly, Harry shook the robes of his body, leaving them in a flaming heap on the stone floor where the flames soon began to consume them in earnest.

Turning back to the still-raging dragon he shouted, louder and more forcefully than before, "_**Stop!**_" This time the dragon obeyed, and now Harry was certain that it looked confused. He stared it down, trying to appear calm and in control while his legs shook so badly that he could hardly stand. His fingernails dug into his palms so hard that Harry knew they would leave a mark. "_We mean you no harm,_" he assured the dragon.

The dragon looked at him tentatively, and then spoke again in the strange voice, "_Master?_"

Hearing the dragon speak now, Harry suddenly realised how young it sounded. He compared it to the size of the Welsh Green Fleur had battled in the Triwizard Tournament and realised that it must be only half the size. This dragon was still young.

Emboldened with this knowledge, Harry took a step forward. "_No, I'm not your master. I just want to pass through this cave with my friends,_" he told the young dragon.

The dragon tensed immediately and it said automatically, "_I must guard this cave and stop anybody who tries to pass through it._"

"_Why?_" Harry said, his voice laced with the patience he used when talking to babies. Suddenly he remembered something Bill had told him. "_Why are you serving a master when no wizard can tame a dragon?_"

The dragon actually looked flustered, "_Master tricked me when I was an infant into serving him. He imprisoned me here._"

"_How?_" Harry asked.

"_I don't know,_" the dragon said thoughtfully, and Harry realised the accent was Welsh Old English. An incredible thought struck him.

"_How old are you?_"

"_I'm not sure how I am imprisoned. Each time I go to escape I suddenly lose all engery and desire to do so. As for my age, I believe I am about two thousand years old._"

Harry choked, "Two thousand years?!" he said in English.

"Harry, what's happening out there?" Hermione's worried voice whispered.

The dragon immediately went tense again, "_Who is there?_"

"_My friends that I mentioned before,_" Harry said calmingly, "_May they come out?_"

The dragon considered him for a moment, "_Yes, Parselmouth, you may bring out your friends._"

Harry called to Ron and Hermione, and they came out slowly. Harry saw that they were clutching each other's hands so tightly that their knuckles were white and he remembered that they had never faced a dragon before. He quickly relayed what he and the dragon had discussed, and despite her terror Hermione immediately had answers.

"That sounds like a F-Fesselentus jinx," she mumbled, her hand still in Ron's and her eyes not leaving the creature in font of her. "I can break it for you."

Harry told the dragon what she had said and its entire aspect changed. Suddenly it looked not only excited but nearly eager.

"On one condition," Hermione said slowly, her voice stronger. Ron shot her a look that clearly expressed that she was a lunatic. She continued nonetheless, "You let us pass, and we will free you when we return."

When Harry relayed this the dragon looked suddenly very nervous. When it spoke again it sounded young again, as if it were a child describing a nightmare. "_You must be very careful once you pass me. There is something much worse through here, and being a wizard will not help you. You may take one thing each from my treasure and go through the hidden hole. I do not want you to get eaten and never return._"

Harry suddenly noticed a large pile of armour and wands sitting to the side of them. Beside it, Harry's stomach lurched, was a pile of old bones. He turned to the dragon incredulously, "_Were those wizards?_"

The dragon looked surprised, "_Of course._"

"_You killed them?_"

"_I did._"

"_Why didn't you kill us?_"

"_You were kind to me and did not attack,_" the dragon said simply. It had settled back on its haunches and was picking its teeth with a claw. It gestured to the treasure pile again and waved them through it. Quickly Harry explained to Ron and Hermione what was to be done, and the three hurried to the pile.

All three of them lit their wands and selected some protection from the pile. Harry picked out a helmet with a snake winding around the crown, Hermione chose a bow and arrow that was made of silver and Ron picked a shield with a polished drawing of a horse on the front.

As soon as Ron had taken his object from the pile a hole suddenly opened below them, and they were falling. Harry barely had time to register what was happening when his wand went out, along with Ron and Hermione's, and he hit the ground hard.

"Ow!" Ron's voice said.

"_Shut up, _Ronald!" Hermione's voice hissed and Harry heard some muffling noises that sounded suspiciously like Hermione had clamped her hand over Ron's mouth. "_Lumos_!" she said.

Nothing happened. "_Lumos_!" Harry tried. Still nothing.

"_Moomoes_!" came Ron's muffled voice, and Harry expected Hermione to get clobbered by the slurred spell, but still nothing happened.

"What's wrong?" he asked them, "Why don't our wands work?"

"Oh Harry," Hermione said in frustration, "Remember what the dragon said? Being a wizard won't help you here." She was rummaging in her pockets.

"What?" Ron said to Harry's left. Apparently Hermione had let go of him in her search. "How are we supposed to see?"

"We aren't?" Harry guessed.

"Ah ha!" Hermione said triumphantly. Suddenly they were bathed in light, and Hermione was revealed. She was clutching the flashlight that she had been holding that morning. The light cut through the darkness with surprising strength and Harry could see that they were in another low tunnel that led off behind him.

"Brilliant Hermione!" Ron said.

"Yes Ron, it's surprising when Muggle technologly can come in handy. It's just lucky that we had been trying to go incognitio as campers last night."

"You came here to scout _last night_?" Harry asked, "Have you _slept_?"

Ron shook his head miserably and was about to reply, but he was cut off by a horrible noise. It sounded like a thousand spiders legs all running towards them. Moments later dark shapes appeared on the edge of Hermione's beam.

"Oh _no_…" Hermione moaned, and she tried to get as close to her beam of light as she could. "Harry, Ron, stay in the light. If I'm right these are _cauchemar_."

"Whats?" Harry asked, but he stepped into her light anyway. He saw Ron pale.

"Nightmares," Hermione said in a hushed voice. It they touch you they make you live your worst fears."

Harry's stomach dropped, "Like dementors."

Hermione looked at him gravely, "No Harry, much worse than Dementors. Cauchemars don't show you memories, they show you fears, so anything is possible. Think of the very worst thing you can and they will make you live through it."

Harry looked at her, stunned, "And we have to get past all of them to get to the Horcrux?"

Hermione shuddered, but nodded. Ron looked incredulous, "Surely there is another way?"

Hermione shook her head. "Normally we would just banish them with magic, but we can't here. We might just have to make a run for it."

"For what, Hermione?" Harry indicated the intense darkness ahead of them.

"Yeah, where's the Horcrux?" Ron asked.

"I don't know!" Hermione said crossly, "I don't know _everything_. But it hardly manners if we can't banish these cauchemars anyway."

Suddenly Harry had an idea. "Hermione, what about Patronuses?"

Hermione looked surprise, but agreed they might work.

"I can't do one," Ron looked embarrassed. "I could sing?"

Hermione actually laughed at this, "_Sing_?"

Ron blushed, "Well, that's what Mum did to keep away our nightmares when we where little."

Hermione smiled, "It's worth a try I guess."

Harry looked around at them, and their smiles faded. They all took a deep breath, and Harry stepped from the circle.

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

_Hey everyone – just wanted to tell you all that I'm off on a trip around Europe today (yes, today) and so I won't be updating for a while. Sorry this chapter was so short, my plane leave in five hours! Since my next update will be after Deathly Hallows, I wish you good reading and hopefully you'll still care what happens to Harry, Draco (who will be back very shortly), Ron and Hermione afterwards. Please review, and stay tuned for Chapter 12: Malfoy Manor!_

_Lots of love,_

_Cat_


	12. Malfoy Manor

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Hello everyone,  
Sorry for the long wait - my computer is broken. I should get these up more regularly now though.  
Did you all like Deathly Hallows?!  
Cat_

Thanks to **Moony** (yes, nightmares can be a lot worse than memories), **Maria** (thank you for your patience!), **Maisy** (thanks, my trip was excellent), **adicxlullaby** (thank you!), **Severine** (sorry about that), and **R.A.B** (i know its after, sorry!! and you will see about Ron soon) for thier reviews!

Also, a special thanks to **Kyo** for your review, and let me explain. I agree with you that Voldemort would not want to be associated personally with Muggles, but I personally think that he would have liked Dragon Hill. I've always thought of Voldemort as a borderline Hilter-ish figure, and like any tryrant I think he would quite enjoy being respected out of fear by the people he oppresses. I think that he would have taken real pleasure in knowing that he had defiled and twisted a muggle heritage site for his own purposes and in knowing that the Muggles were unknowingly helping him by gaurding the entrance to a piece of his soul. Of course, nobody but him would ever know what he had done, so it would be just another secret win against Muggles. Thanks again for the review!

_This one's for all of you!_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Malfoy Manor**

Immediately the nearest cauchemar grabbed for him, and he thought desperately, 'Expecto patronum!'

Nothing happened, and the horrible realization that he could still not do magic hit him. He had just a moment to glimpse Hermione's terrified face before he was falling through darkness, spinning faster and faster through oblivion.

All of a sudden he was catapulted into a scene in a way that reminded him distinctly of a Penseive. Draco was in front of him smiling and waving and, though Harry knew in his mind that Draco was miles away, nothing could stop his scream as suddenly Voldemort appeared behind the blond. For a few seconds he continued to smile, blissfully unaware of the danger he was in, before a blinding flash from Voldemort's wand caught him in the back. He fell forward, coming to rest at Harry's feet with the smile he reserved only for Harry still playing across his face.

Harry screamed harder, and suddenly it was not Draco staring blankly up at him but Ron. Hermione appeared out of nowhere and fell to her knees beside Ron. "Harry, how could you? How could you?" she wailed, tears running torrential down her cheeks.

He tried to tell her it had not been him, that Voldemort had killed Ron, but she would not listen. Louder and louder she howled and suddenly Harry was aware of a crowd pressing in around him. Faceless wizards and witches sneered and scowled at him.

"We trusted you," one of them hissed.

"The Chosen One," another spat out mockingly.

"We are very disappointed in you Harry," a voice said softly, and Harry felt as if he had fallen into fire. It was Sirius, and beside him were Harry's parents.

"Harry!" somebody called.

"_Harry! Harry! Harry!_" the crowd jeered from all sides.

"…and Odo the Hero, they bore him away…"

"_Harry! Harry! Harry!_"

"…with his hat inside out…" sang a voice, and Harry turned to see Ron, miraculously upright again.

"_Harry! Harry! Harry!_" a voice shouted very close to him, and Harry turned again to see Hermione. "Wake _up_, Harry, we have to get out of here!"

And suddenly the crowd was gone, and it was very dark again. Hermione was bending over him with her torch's light shining down on him. Ron was standing behind her, singing Odo the hero without much skill but still rather better than Slughorn and Hagrid ever managed.

"Harry, we have to get out of this tunnel, come on," Hermione urged, tugging him down the passage toward a lighted archway. Harry stumbled after her, Ron at the rear.

"…and his wand snapped in two, which was sad…" Ron crooned as they reached the end of the tunnel. He held the note just long enough for the three of them to step into the brightness. As soon as he stopped singing the cauchemars surged forward but they could not come into the light.

Ron let out a sigh of relief, "Damn Harry, you took your time to wake up there! I was on the last verse of Odo the Hero. The last verse! _Do you know how many verses there are to that song_?" He rubbed his throat hoarsely.

"Thanks Ron," Harry said, still feeling slightly dazed. "Hermione, what happened?"

"One of the cauchemars got you Harry," she bit her lip, "I'm so sorry, Ron sang and I had my torch, but we had no way to keep them off you…"

"It's ok," Harry said more strongly. It had all been a nightmare, nothing more. He took several steadying breaths and looked around, and it was only then he realized was a peculiar room he had stepped into.

Where they should have been standing on hard rock they were instead ankle-deep in an unkempt lawn that stood in front of an equally disheveled building. Harry recognized it with a jolt as the orphanage that Tom Riddle had grown up in. He remembered Hermione telling him that it had been demolished, but it stood intact (if worse for wear) in front of him now. Looking up Harry saw that they stood not under an oppressive cave wall but under a brilliant sky.

"Of course," Hermione breathed, "the cauchemars can't come in here because its lit by _sunlight_."

"Right," said Harry, and then he began striding forward, relaying what he knew about this building to Ron and Hermione as he walked. They hurried after him up the front steps.

Each floorboard creaked as he stepped on it, sending large clouds of dust into the air and obscuring his view, but Harry knew where he was going. He walked purposefully to Tom Riddle's old room. It was exactly as he remembered it, and he felt certain where the Horcrux would be. Wrenching open the dresser he reached up to the top shelf. Sure enough, the old cardboard box lay there. Harry took it down, just as he had once watch Tom Riddle do, and laid it on the bed.

Ron and Hermione crowded silently around him as he carefully lifted the lid. Inside was a collection of old stolen toys and amongst them was a cup. Just as with the mirror in Godric's Hollow, the cup seemed impervious to the dust and grime that lay so heavily over the rest of the orphanage.

Ron and Hermione smiled widely at Harry, and Ron reached out to touch the cup. As soon as his fingers hit the metal however, Harry knew they had made a mistake. Suddenly they were plunged into darkness again, and the floor under their feet disintegrated and they fell through it, landing hard on the rocky floor of the cave.

Ron and Hermione didn't miss a beat. Hermione immediately switched her torch back on so that its light illuminated horribly the dark creatures swooping around them again, and Ron burst loudly and soulfully into another rendition of Odo the Hero. For his part, Harry had fallen onto something sharp in his pocket. Crowding closer to his friends, he jammed his hand into his trousers and pulled out the offending object. It was the shrunken sword, and as soon as it was liberated from his pocket it began to elongate and swell. In a matter of seconds he was holding a full-sized sword. It was glowing faintly but without colour, and Harry was reminded of the way the Dursley's television would glow for hours after being turned off when he was young, as if inviting him to just turn it on.

"Where'd _that_ come from?" Ron gasped between verses of Odo. Harry did not answer him, he was busy slashing the sword through the air. To his utter astonishment, the sword cut through the cauchmars as if they were flash and bone.

"Harry, the exit!" Hermione pointed back at the tunnel they had come from. The three of them Ran, Hermione in the lead using her torch to cut a path of light through the cauchmars, Ron behind her now belting out Cynthia Warbeck, and Harry at the rear slashing away at the cauchemars that surged forward when the other had passed. With each cut he made, the afflicted cauchemar would vent some of the most horrible noises Harry had ever heard. Screams, creaks, crying all burst out of each wound he created, and Harry realized that they were nightmares spilling out of the vessels that brought them.

It seemed like an eternity before they reached the dead end of the tunnel they had fallen into. There was no visible way out as the cauchemars pressed in, and out of desperation Harry called out to the only being he though could help them.

"_Help_," he screamed into the darkness, praying the dragon could hear him."_Please help us_!"

To his enormous relief, a voice answered wryly, "_Well, since you asked nicely_." Suddenly an enormous tail smashed through the ceiling, the tip of it stopping at Harry's feet. Without any hesitation he began to climb the spikes that were spaced up its length. Hermione and Ron, still singing, climbed after him until all three of them had collapsed back into the Dragon's chamber. Once they had climbed out of the hole, the dragon withdrew his tail and Hermione whispered exhaustedly, "_Lapistra_."

A giant rock appeared out of nowhere and fell into the hole in the floor, muffling out the horrible scuttling-screaming of the cauchemars. Harry looked over at Ron, who had fallen silent and was now staring at the Horcrux in his hand.

"Ron, put it down on the ground."

Ron hesitated a second, then set it down upright on the ground. Seized with the knowledge that it was the right thing to do, Harry lifted his sword with both hands up above his head and brought the tip down forcefully into the center of the cup. The sword stopped at the metal and there was moment where nothing happened. Then, slowly, a crack spread outward across the cup in two directions away from the sword. The crack widened until it reached down the cup into the floor, and then the cup fell apart in two halves. As it did so there was the faintest scream, no louder than the muted cauchemars, and the cup glowed so bright for a second that Harry was blinded. Then there was silence.

And in that silence Harry felt his pocket sear with heat.

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Malfoy Manor had never been a well heated building and its dungeons were far worse even than normal. Draco, having never been imprisoned in his own house before, had never before had the chance to appreciate this. It was not really until he had pulled out the scrap of parchment that connected him to Harry and scribbled his boyfriends name and his message and the paper had glowed hot as the message was sent that he realized how very cold his fingers were. He was not left very long to dwell on that, however. Pettigrew had spotted what he was doing.

"What's that, boy?" he snarled, and his silver hand shot through the bars. "Give it to me!"

Wandless, Draco had no choice. He could only hope as he handed it over that Harry would not send a message back and reveal the parchments secret. Pettigrew looked at the blank square suspiciously, and Draco remembered that the man had some practice with bewitched parchment.

"Come on," Pettigrew said, a horrible grin spreading across his face. "You are going to show our lord how this works."

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

_harry_

_at malfoy manor dungeon furthest cell on left _

_the manor is behind Mt. Halcyon_

Harry stared down at the words written on the parchment for several seconds, and then he read them aloud to Ron and Hermione.

"Mt. Halcyon?" Ron asked worriedly. "Where's that?"

Hermione looked equally troubled, "How are we getting out of here?"

Harry turned to the dragon, who was lounging near his treasure, apparently uninterested in the humans that had now taken up residence in his cave. "_Um, excuse me_," Harry said tentatively. The dragon looked up.

"_Yes, Dragonmouth_?"

"_Do you know how we might get out of here…Sir?_"

"_Well, I_ _would think it will be very simple. Once your friend breaks the thing binding me here, I would be more than willing to carry you to safety_," the dragon looked up at the cave ceiling wistfully. "_I want to go home_," it murmured, and Harry was again reminded how young the dragon really was.

Harry turned to his friends again, and was mildly embarrassed to discover them comforting each other by snogging. "Erm…Hermione?" Harry said awkwardly, and his friends popped apart.

"Uh, yes?" Hermione said, straightening her robes.

"Didn't you say there was a curse on this cave that you could break?"

"Oh! Yes, the Fessselentus jinx," she said, and immediately set upon undoing it. Ron looked put out that his snogging was done for now and wandered off to look at the treasure pile.

"Tell your fire-headed friend that if he takes anything I have not given to him I'm sure he will make a delicious afternoon snack."

Harry relayed the message, then turned back to the Dragon. "_My name is Harry Potter, by the way,_" he said kindly to the young dragon.

"_And mine is Halcyon, Harry_ _Potter_."

Once again, Harry was surprised into English, "Seriously?!"

Ron looked up, "What is it, mate?"

"His name is Halcyon!" Harry said.

Predictably, Hermione gasped, "_The_ Halcyon the Dragon? The one raised by Herpo the Foul, famous for teaching Herpo the ancient language of snakes?"

"I…what?" Harry spluttered.

"That's how wizards learned snake language Harry! Herpo made it a hereditary trait in his family to talk to snakes."

"You can make traits hereditary?" Harry asked, bemused.

"Well, its very complicated and Dark magic, but yes," Hermione said. "There! I think I've got it!"

Halcyon stood up. "_The charm has been lifted_?" he asked Harry.

"_Yes, I think so."_

"_Well, please climb up my tail and onto my back then, and I will fly you out of here if you wish. However, I must warn you that I will not be stopping my flight until I am home._"

"_And where do you live?_" Harry asked as he clambered up the tail again, though he had a hopeful guess.

"_Under the mountain my parents named for me, of course_," Halcyon replied, and after seeing that Ron and Hermione had climbed aboard his back after Harry, he bent his legs and reared. "_It is not far from here._ _Hold on_," he warned, and rammed upward into the ceiling.

The rock burst off the dragon's scales as easily as if it had been cardboard. Sooner than he had expected, Harry felt them burst through the top of the mountain. He looked down just in time to see the shocked faces of the American family, and couldn't help but laugh.

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Draco winced as Pettigrew's iron fist curled painfully into his back. He was being hauled bodily up the stairs leading up from the dungeon towards his drawing room. Inside there, he knew, the Dark Lord was waiting. As he approached the door he was pulled to a stop by Pettigrew, who face had gone tense at the sound of voices coming from within. Draco strained to hear what they were saying.

"…disappointed me, Goyle. I would have thought a weak mind like Lucius' would have been easy to control," rasped a harsh voice that Draco recognized too well.

A slow, blundering reply came immediately, "He fought so hard, Master, when I made him kill his wife and try to kill his son."

Hot blood rushed suddenly through Draco's fingers and toes, thawing them instantly. Was it possible…?

"And yet you assured me you could handle him. I will not be so foolish next time Goyle."

'No Master, please," Goyle begged.

"Crucio," Voldemort rasped, and screams echoed out under the door and down the hallway back toward the dungeons. Pettigrew seemed to decide this was a good break in which to interrupt. He knocked, his metal knuckles raking the polished wood Draco's father had prized so much. The screaming stopped.

"Come in, Wormtail."

Draco was once again seized and nearly lifted off his feet, such was Pettigrew's haste to get him into he room. The grimy little man dragged him forward and threw him onto the rug at the Dark Lord's feet before flinging himself down also into a ludicrously low bow.

"My Lord, I caught the boy with this," the man simpered, and Draco dared to look up. Voldemort was sitting in his father's chair beside the fire, his snake was curled evilly not more than a few feet from Draco and Bellatrix Lestrange stood behind him. She reached out and plucked the offered paper from Pettigrew's hand.

"What is it?" Voldemort asked, now examining the paper.

"Well, Master, I'm not sure," Pettigrew began, but he never got to finish, because at that moment there was something that sounded like a very large explosion at the front of the house. Voldemort and the assembled Death Eaters, shadows on Draco's vision until now, snapped to attention. There were several tense seconds, then a hooded man burst through the door.

"My Lord, Harry Potter is here, and he's brought a d-dragon," the man's voice betrayed his fear.

Voldemort stood, and without any ceremony he swept from the room, followed by his most faithful servants. Once again Draco was left alone with Pettigrew. Outside the room he could hear bangs and shattering glass, and he could only imagine that a fight had broken out. Several times he heard the deafening roar of a dragon not far away, and some other times he thought he heard Harry's voice shouting.

Suddenly a jet of red light burst out of thin air in the nearly empty room, and Pettigrew fell to the ground, Stunned. Draco wasted no second in snatching the fallen man's wand, but he needn't have been defensive. It was with enormous relief that he saw Hermione Granger removing Harry's invisibility cloak. She beckoned to him with a tense smile, and he ran to join her. As soon as he was close enough, she threw the cloak over them both and together they ran wordlessly back to the front of the Manor.

Draco would reflect later, when the wounds were not so fresh, that it might have been a good thing that his father had died (he never managed to think of it as _was killed,_ much less by him), because he never had to see his beloved family home in ruins. When he and Hermione made their way to the battle the dragon was pulling the house down with relish, and the dueling witches and wizards were adding to the destruction with reducing and blasting hexes. As soon as they were in eyesight of the combatants, Hermione sent a shower of yellow sparks from under the cloak. This apparently served as a signal for her two friends and the dragon they had inexplicably enlisted, for Ron immediately Stunned his opponent and rushed over. Hermione ducked out from under the cloak.

"Stay under there," she hissed to Draco. He obeyed, but not because Hermione had asked him to, but because he did not think he could have moved anyway. He stood, rooted to the ground by fear, as the dragon ambled carelessly across the foyer through the scattering Death Eaters towards them. It was the largest thing Draco had ever seen, and he watched its spiked tail in horror as it swished nearer and nearer to him.

Suddenly the beast stopped, and to his shock Ron and Hermione began to climb onto its back. "Draco!" Hermione hissed, "Follow us!"

Reluctantly Draco complied. Ron and Hermione were sitting astride the dragon by the time he clambered on, touching Hermione's back to let her know he was there. Ron was yelling, "Harry, come on Harry!"

Draco's eyes seached the crowd desperately for his boyfriend, and then he spotted him. He felt all the breath wheeze out of him. Harry was dancing back and forth in a circle of Death Eaters, dodging curses flung at him by none other than the Dark Lord. The snakelike man laughed as he hurled curse after curse.

With an ear-splitting roar the dragon swung its tail through the circle knocking a half dozen death eaters to the ground and throwing just as many into the air as he did so. As the tail passed Harry he turned and grabbed one of the lethal spikes with Seeker reflexes. In a few second he was braced on the still-swinging tail, and the dragon reared and took flight.


	13. The Safe House

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Hey guys, sorry this took so long! My computer is fixed FINALLY, yay!_

Thanks to **acidxlullaby** (isn't Ron great?), **Maria **(bloody hell indeed!), **em **(thank you!), **Retaro0** (that was more than a decent review!), **Sugar Baby** (OK OK OK! haha), **Songbird Severine** (isn't Harry great too?), and **Tarkemelhion **(thanks for reading) for their reviews! Seven reviews in one chapter, you guys made my week!

This one is for all _seven_ of you!

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**The Safe House**

The dragon landed about a mile from the Manor, so that Harry could still see the smoldering wreckage of Draco's house burning in the distance. As soon as Halcyon had touched down, all four of them slide hastily from his back.

"_Thank you_," Harry said, and bowed to the dragon.

"_You are welcome, Harry Potter. I was glad to exact my revenge on the man who imprisoned me for so long_," Halcyon hissed in response and with that he turned tail and began to bust his way noisily into the forest up the mountain.

Harry turned back to his friends, who were standing around looking slightly lost and very awkward. Ron and Draco were eyeing each other uneasily, while Hermione stood between them, helpless. Harry noticed that Ron was sporting a bleeding lip and Hermione had a long gash in her arm. He cleared his throat.

"Well, I guess we better get going," Harry said, trying to be cheerful. His eyes caught Draco's eyes and it was all he could do to look away and resist flinging his arms around the blond right there. "Hermione, I don't think we are in any state to Apparate just now, is there another w-"

Harry's words were interrupted by a sudden _whoooosh_ of wind over the grass and a flash of white light. A silver wolf had appeared amongst them, made entirely of a white light that shimmered thinly in the brilliant sun. For a moment it surveyed them silently, then it turned and spoke to Harry with Tonk's voice.

"Death Eaters have raided Headquarters. Everyone is safe. Go to the safe house at 11 Fairview Way instead," directed the wolf and then, its message delivered, dissolved into nothingness.

There was a moment of thoughtful silence, which Hermione broke. "Well, I agree we shouldn't Apparate, especially not to a place we've never been to before," she began to rummage in the large sack she had brought, "I think we'd better…if I can just find…aha!" She was holding an old sock triumphantly.

"Um…" Draco began cautiously, while Ron and Harry settled for looking dubious.

"_Portus_!" Hermione said, sending them a mildly reproachful look. The sock glowed blue for a second and waved as if in a high wind, then it fell limp again, as inconspicuous as possible. "Come on," Hermione said, "It won't lave until we are all touching it."

Ron and Harry each pinched a piece of sock obediently, but Draco hung back. He was giving Hermione an appraising look. "Once again, Granger, that was very impressive magic," he said, drawling only very slightly, and them he actually smiled slightly.

Hermione went pink, still clutching the old sock. "Well, thank you Malfoy."

Draco smiled again, and Harry felt slightly lightheaded as the Slytherin looked around at them all. "No Granger, thank you…all of you," Draco murmured, and then he touched the sock.

Immediately there was an almighty jerk behind Harry's navel, and he felt as if he had been fishooked in the stomach and yanked into spinning oblivion. Around and around they twirled and the world became more and more confused until Harry was not sure which way was up or even how long they had been traveling.

With unpleasant suddenness his feet were slammed into the ground. Miraculously he was left standing, though both his ankles felt as if they had been shattered. He looked around to find Hermione and Ron on the ground, the latter wearing a bemused expression as he was helped to his feet by a still-standing Draco. Harry hastened to assist Hermione, who seemed to have been winded by the sack she was still carrying. As he helped her up he understood why.

"Jesus Hermione, what's in this bag? _Rocks_?"

She gave him an annoyed look and then turned to see where they were. Harry did the same, and was met with another surprise. Fairview Way certainly lived up to its name. Harry figured that they must not have traveled very far, for they were still in the mountains. The dirt road they were standing on seemed to be about a quarter of the way up one of the middle-sized mountains in the range, and Harry could see that it wound its way steeply and sharply up both below and above him. The road was thickly bordered by trees, but over the top of the ones to his left Harry could see an astonishing vista of peaks and valleys, blues, whites, purples and greens. To his right Harry could just make out the side of a log house hidden up a dirt path. Pointing this out to the others, the small party began to make its way over. They had gone only several steps, however, when a young witch with bright blue hair came running down the path to greet them. Halfway down she lost her footing in the blanket of snow, fell forward and landed on the earth with a thud. Apparently this was a common occurrence, however, because before Harry could even react she was back on her feet, brushing dirt from her robes.

"Wotcher, Harry," Tonks greeted them all with one sweeping smile. When her eyes fell on Draco her smile doubled and she actually threw her arms around the boy. "Draco! You're ok! You're back?"

Tonks looked at Harry, half questioning and half accusatorily. "Is that why you snuck off this morning, Harry? To get my cousin?"

"N-" Ron began, but that was as far as he got.

"Yes," Hermione cut across him. "We found out where Draco was and went to rescue him."

"Well, you had the rest of us in a real state. Your mother especially, Ron, was worried sick. Of course, it didn't help when the Death Eaters showed up demanding to know where Draco was and vowing revenge on you lot," Tonks reprimanded, but then she smiled. "Dolohov mentioned something about a dragon before I Stunned him?"

Ron grinned at Tonks and launched into the full story, with editorial notes from Hermione, as they headed up the path to the house. Walking behind them, Harry fell into step with Draco, walking so close to the blond that their fingers brushed with each step, sending little pulses of electricity through Harry.

When they reached the porch of the wooden house, Molly Weasley was waiting for them. Wordlessly she pulled each of them into a hug, including a stunned Draco, before commanding that they all come in immediately. Ron and Hermione were shepherded into the kitchen to get cleaned up, but Harry and Draco, both unhurt, were allowed to head directly up the creaky stairs to the room they would all share.

"You all go straight to bed!" Mrs. Weasley ordered.

"Mum!" Harry heard Ron protest, "It's barely past noon!"

"And you've had quite the morning!" Mrs. Weasley replied, and then the voices were shut out by the kitchen door.

Harry closed the ancient door of their room with a faint click and turned to face Draco. The Slytherin was still very pale, and Harry noticed he had ripped his robes on the spikes of Halcyon's tail. They stared at each other for several seconds, then Draco took several steps forwards and pulled Harry into his arms.

For a moment they simply stood holding each other, and then Harry felt Draco's fingers push his face up. Obeying their pressure, he turned to face his boyfriend. For one more second they stared, each marveling that the other was there at all, and then they kissed. Harry felt all the blood in his body pump between his ears and down into his weary legs, giving them strength. Then Draco slid his hand up Harry's chest under his shirt, and a considerable amount of that blood rushed straight to his groin. Suddenly he needed to be as close to Draco as possible, and to this affect he gripped the hem of Draco's shirt and pulled it roughly over the blond's head.

Draco laughed. "Horny Potter, the Boy Who Lived," he sneered. Harry groaned, but the creature in his chest was doing cartwheels. He had Draco back. As his boyfriend pulled his shirt off too, Harry felt as if the world was finally going his way.

'Mostly, anyway' he thought ruefully as his glasses caught on his shirt and the world was plunged into a blurry haze. Once again he stopped caring entirely as Draco's mouth attached itself to his collarbone and his boyfriend's pale hands traced up and down his back. Harry ran his hands up Draco's chest, tweaking a nipple playfully and making the blond squeak.

Harry grinned, but the grin slipped off his face as he heard the stairs creak. "Somebody's coming," he said regretfully, and both boys jumped into their separate beds. Harry listened with his eyes closed as Ron and Hermione came into the room. All of a sudden he felt very tired. 'Maybe Mrs. Weasley isn't completely wrong about us needing sleep,' he thought as, exhausted but incredibly happy, he slipped into sleep.

HDHDHDDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

The living room of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, was in shambles. The ancient drapes and wallpaper sported deep gashes and burn marks. Broken glass littered the floor from the huge cabinet that had fallen forward onto the rug, revealing the Black Family Tree. This too had several conspicuous burn marks, but they were not from the battle. The couches had been thrown against the walls to clear a space in the center of the floor, where a lone high-backed chair stood upright, its fellows all lying wounded in the furthest corner.

Harry sat in this chair and stared at the man in front of him. It was Wormtail, the useless rat. The miserable little man looked more washed out than ever, his hair nearly all gone and his skin the colour of cream from spending so much time inside. His silver hand clenched and unclenched unconsciously, the only way he betrayed his intense fear of Harry.

"My Lord," Wormtail sank to the floor in submission, his knees crushing several shards of glass into the rug. Harry saw with some satisfaction that the man was in pain, but he refused to show it.

"Wormtail," Harry rasped in a cold, high voice. "How is it that you, once again, you have let my prisoners escape?"

"M-master," Wormtail stuttered. "I donot know how it hap-"

Harry had already heard enough. "_Crucio_," he whispered.

Wormtail screamed and his limbs began to jerk and twitch uncontrollably. Harry laughed as the man writhed in agony. Then, very suddenly, he stopped laughing. Wormtail fell still, falling to his hands and knees and cutting his palms on the shattered glass.

"Potter," Harry said slowly.

"P-pardon, M-Master?" Wormtail said, confused.

"Quiet Wormtail. Potter, he is here."

Suddenly the room was dissolving, and Harry found himself looking once more at the safe house in the mountains, but something was different. With a horrible swooping rush of dread Harry realized that he could still feel Voldemort's mind next to his – that Voldemort was in his head.

'Very good Potter,' a voice said, almost gently. 'Now get up.'

'Like hell,' Harry thought, but to his horror his body obeyed, rising from his bed.

Voldemort chuckled, a sound that sent spiders running down Harry's spine. 'Now you will help me settle a score. Kill Draco Malfoy.'

'No!' Harry thought, even as his body turned. As his eyes landed on the sleeping blond, Harry felt a surge of protectiveness and love more powerful than he had imagined possible, and he shouted, "No!"

Hermione was first to her feet, wand in hand, and Harry felt the other mind inside his head being driven out. Draco sat straight up in bed, pulling his wand from under his pillow as he did. As Ron climbed from bed Harry felt his knees go weak and he sank to the floor.

"Harry? Harry, what happened?" Hermione's anxious voice asked. Harry felt arms go around his shoulders and realized Draco was on the floor beside him. He leaned imperceptibly into the touch. At that moment Tonks and Remus Lupin burst through the door.

"Harry," Tonks echoed, "What happened?"

Taking several steadying breaths, Harry pulled himself up onto the bed and recounted them to them all what he had seen, what he had nearly done. By the end of the retelling Remus was very, very pale and Tonks looked as if somebody had slipped Bubotuber Pus into her morning coffee. Hermione, Ron and Draco all looked torn between wanting to comfort him and wanting to get as far from him as possible.

When he finished there were several uncomfortable moments of silence, then Lupin cleared his throat. "Well, I reckon it's time for breakfast anyway," he said with forced cheer, indicating the window. Harry turned and saw that the sun was indeed beginning to rise behind the nearest mountain. "Let's get downstairs why don't we."

All six of them traipsed down to the kitchen, where Harry could smell coffee already being made. As they entered, Harry noticed three publications splayed over the table. _The Daily Prophet,_ which was reporting how successful the Ministry had been of late in capturing the Death Eaters, entitled, "_Minister of Magic: Justice Will Prevail!_". The article went on to say that several wizards between 20 and 24 had been taken into custody under suspicion of Dark Magic involvement. _The Quibbler_ was reporting on the strange laws being passed by the Ministry and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement on restricting the movement of all magical creatures, and what the implications might be for migrating species of Krinkly Plimbledrums. The other was the local Muggle paper, entitled the _Misty Mountain Mumbler_, from which a startling headline roared from the title page:

**TERRRORIST ATTACK AT THE UFFINGTON HORSE**

_Three suspicious teenagers are now being sought for questioning in regard to the alleged terrorist bombing at Dragon Hill, near the Uffington Horse, occurring yesterday at about noontime. The famed "bald spot", where St. George is supposed to have slain the dragon and forever poisoned the earth with its spilled blood, was blown apart from underground. While authorities suspect that traditional explosives were responsible, no supporting evidence can be found and others are formulating their own opinions. Jerry Higgins of Baton-Rouge, Lousisiana was on vacation from the United States with his family, and he claims to have witnessed the explosion._

_"There was a rumbling," Mr. Higgins recalls, " and then a huge airplane or rocket or something burst from the ground, blasting dirt everywhere, and there were three teenagers on it, or inside it...or something."_

_While Mr. Higgins' description of events seems somewhat unlikely, without any other leads national and regional authorities are being forced to follow up on this lead. The three teenagers Mr. Higgins describes are expected to be between 18 and 20, two boys and one girl. Apparently they were seen earlier in the morning attempting to access the 'bald spot' by jumping fences, but were apprehended by security. _

_"One boy, the one that we saw trying to sneak over the fence, had glasses and very wild dark hair. His accomplice, the other boy, was very tall with red hair and a very visible case of acne-"_

"Hey!" Ron said, reading over Harry's shoulder. "I do not have acne, these are freckles!"

Harry turned at him and grinned, but the smile was wiped quickly off his face as Ron jumped back and refused to look at him.

"Here Harry," Remus said. "Have some chocolate."

Harry took the offered piece and bit into it. The rush of warmth that spread from his throat down and through his limbs could only cheer him so far as his friends continued to avoid his gaze. Ron, Hermione and even Draco wolfed down the scrambled eggs that Tonks had whipped up with unnecessary haste, and all looked very grateful when Remus suggested that he ought to talk to Harry alone.

When everyone had left, and with rather more haste than Harry thought was really necessary,Remus asked Harry to sit down and recount his experience again. When he had done so, Remus pulled a chair over to him, turned it backward and sat so that his arms folded across the back of the chair. "Harry," he said seriously, "I think it is time you resumed Occlumency lessons."

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

The next few weeks were busy ones at the safe house, which Harry learned had once belonged to Dumbledore and which had the affectionate name of the Mountain Goat Lodge (so named for the large herd of free-roaming mountain goats that seemed to cluster around the house on most days). It turned out that Hermione had not been carrying rocks, but she might have well have been. She had packed up everything important to their search from Grimmauld Place and shrunk it all. As a result, they had everything they needed to continue their search, not to mention a few much-needed changes of clothes.

"Brilliant, Hermione!" Ron sayed, examining the pair of Chudley Cannons gloves Ron had got from Christmas that she had thought to save. Other valuble things had been saved as well. All the books Harry had had in the library and some Hermione had borrowed from school were there, and on the second morning Hermione made an important discovery in one of them.

"Harry, come see this!" she had called to him, breaking the streak of unnerving silence from his friends he had endured since the incident days before. "Look here," she had pointed in the book. "It says that Horcruxes can only be destroyed in a few specific ways. First, and easiest, they can be destroyed by powerful destructive magic…like a basilisk fang, I guess, or your sword. Secondly, they can be destroyed by the mental power of somebody they possess, but only if that person manages to overcome the Horcrux…which is very rare. Thirdly, they can be destroyed by the person who created them, but most people don't willingly destroy a section of their soul."

Armed with this new information, Herry, Ron and Draco would sit around for hours tossing around ideas of where the Horcruxes were and how they cold be destroyed nce found. Hermione would sit with them, her nose so low in a book that only the tops of her bushy hair were visible, but would only interupt them on the rare occasion she found something useful. The only difficulty of their Horcrux quest was, as ever, keeping it from Tonks and Remus, who, no longer able to live at Grimmauld Place, had also moved into the Lodge. With them had come Winky, still happily in Remus' service, and Dobby. Kreacher had refused to leave Grimmauld Place for Remus or Tonks, and was not coming when Harry called him.

"That's not good, Harry," Remus had told him gravely. "It takes very powerful and draining magic to hold a house-elf when his master wants him. They must have an important reason for containing Kreacher."

With this ominous thought looming over him, Harry worked harder than he had ever done at Occlumency. Remus was much better a teacher than Snape, though Harry had known this since he was thirteen. Remus allowed Harry to remove any personal memories into his personal Pensieve before each session, which allowed Harry to practice without feeling invaded. He progressed quickly, much to Remus' delight, and Harry was reminded each session of the Patronus lessons. By then end of January Harry could block Remus out completely, though Remus reminded him that Voldemort often invaded his mind, and vice versa, in sleep, when Harry's mind was least focused.

Harry's spirits could not be dampened too far, however, for several days after they destroyed the cup Ron and Hermione's second term at Hogwarts began. Though he was sad to see his friends step into the fireplace and Floo back to Hogwarts without him, Harry was taking full advantage of the extra time he had alone with Draco. While all they had managed when Ron and Hermione were around were chaste kisses while passing in the hallway, now they were left alone for hours at a time while Tonks was working and Remus was off conferring with the Order.

One such evening found Draco and Harry in their shared bedroom, Draco having offered to test Harry's new Occlumency skills. Harry sat on the edge of his bed with his wand held lazily in his fingers, and Draco stood over him, wand out.

"Legillimens!" Draco said, and Harry felt the pressure that told him that Draco was trying to break into his mind. He stared blandly up at him, thinking of nothing much at all. After nearly a minute of this both boys were getting fairly bored, a situation which gave Harry a nasty idea.

Slowly he allowed thoughts to slip across the blank sheet of his mind. 'My god, Draco has a nice ass,' Harry thought purposefully. Immediately colour jumped into Draco's cheeks, but he kept his focus. Now smiling impishly, Harry let a memory of a rather intense evening he had spent with Draco a few days past surface. In both their minds dream Draco was waiting for dream Harry when he came up the stairs and as soon as he had opened the door, dream Harry was flung onto the bed on which real Harry now sat. Dream Draco then proceeded to divest dream Harry of his shirt unceremoniously, and then began trailing kisses down the exposed skin starting at his collarbones and working his way down over the taunt Quidditch muscles down past dream Harry's bellybutton to the faint trace of hair that led downwards still.

It was when dream Draco began undoing dream Harry's pants that real Draco's resolve seemed to break. The scene in both their minds disappeared with a vague sucking noise as Draco jumped out of Harry's mind and onto his lap. Harry had to laugh as Draco all but landed on him, forcing him further back on the bed. The blond fisted his hands in the unruly hair at the nape of Harry's neck, pulling gently as he guided Harry's head into a searing kiss. Harry brought one hand up under Draco's shirt, caressing his lower back, while he balled his other hand in the covers to keep them both upright. Draco shifted, and Harry felt the heat rise in his face as he felt how turned on Draco was. He pulled his mouth from Draco's and arched his eyebrows teasingly, "Now who's horny Draco?"

"You bastard, Potter," Draco growled playfully, all but yanking Harry's hair out and gently knocking his elbow so that they fell together fully onto the bed. Harry grinned and, rolling Draco underneath him and pinning him with his hips, captured the Slytherin's mouth again, secure in the knowledge that Tonks and Remus weren't due back for several hours.


	14. The Wizarding Safety Act

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Hello all,_

_Sorry this took so long! But only two reviews? Really? That's not very encouraging…_

_Oh and, because somebody asked me, I have had the coming events planned since I started writing (I have an outline for the whole story in fact), so they weren't inspired by Deathly Hallows at all. :)_

_Cat_

_Big thank you __**acidxlullaby**__ (I do have a soft spot for Draco, I must say) and __**Maria**__ (Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! Heehee!) for their reviews of chapter thirteen and to __**Draeconin**__ for keeping me on my toes! This one is written for you!_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**The ****Wizarding Safety Act **

The few weeks spent at the Lodge were some of the happiest that Harry had spent in a while. January literally melted into February, the sun blazing so brilliantly each day that the snow that had surrounded the house disappeared in rivers of water that ran down the dirt road with spirited energy. The only thing to cast a shadow over Harry's happiness was the violent dreams he kept having, courtesy of his link to Voldemort. The Dark Lord was exceptionally angry. He had finally learned of the 'explosion' at Dragon Hill, but because of the amount of both Muggle authorities and Magical Law Enforcement swarming all over the hill he was unable to check on his Horcrux. Harry sensed that he did not really think that anyone had discovered his secret because he thought his ruse to well constructed and felt sure that he would have felt it, but he was concerned that the Horcrux's protection might have been compromised. Harry thought it was definitely for the best that Voldemort remained ignorant of his Horcrux's destruction, or Harry's search would certainly get more difficult.

In addition to this, Voldemort seemed to be suffering another secret frustration, for neither of these issues could he share with his Death Eaters. As his annoyance continued to grow he broke into Harry's sleeping mind more and more often. Through his lessons with Remus, Harry was usually able to eject himself easily before he was detected, but he feared one day he would again find himself possessed.

Such a day came at the end of the first week of February. Harry was having a very good dream involving Draco and the motorcycle pants when suddenly pain seared across his scar. He bolted upright, eyes snapping open. The bedroom dissolved before his eyes to be replaced with a room he did not recognize, filled with a voice that he did.

"Kreacher won't, _won't_," Kreacher the house elf mumbled fiercely. Harry stared down at him, bound by unseen ropes to a little chair, through Voldemort's unblinking eyes. "Kreacher will not disobey his Master."

The little elf struggled more, and Voldemort clapped his hands loudly. A man stepped through a door in the corner and jabbed Kreacher with his wand. The wood seemed to electrically shock the elf into silence, and Harry caught a glimpse of the stranger's pinched face and graying black hair before he slipped back into the shadows.

Harry nearly jumped out of his skin as a high voice rang furiously through the room. Voldemort was _screaming_ at the elf out of Harry's mouth. "Regulus Black is _not_ your master anymore! Tell me where the Horcrux is!"

Kreacher shook his head violently so that his ears flapped and Harry was reminded suddenly of Dobby. Harry felt his face twitch in fury. "_Crucio_!"

The little elf screamed and twisted in his chair. "No, no, no,' he wept.

Harry lifted his wand and the elf fell still. "No?" he asked, deadly calm. "You will tell me where the Horcrux is hidden then?"

Kreacher looked up and, very slowly, shook his head again. Immediately he began to howl and twitch again, this time so violently that he fell off his chair.

Several things happened very quickly after that. As Kreacher fell forward off the chair he revealed the tapestry behind him. Harry immediately recognized it as the Black Family Tree and, more importantly, his eye was drawn unconsciously along with Voldemort's to the name Regulus Black. In the ornate writing of the tapestry the first letters of each name was decorated and large, and suddenly Harry knew why Voldemort was interrogating Kreacher. A rush of understanding and excitement filled him, and in his elation Harry forgot to repress it.

Voldemort dropped his hand again and Harry's blood ran cold as he felt his face stretch into a smirk. He had only a second to close his mind before he felt Voldemort pushing him out of his mind and back into Harry's. Desperately Harry resisted, thinking of Draco sleeping vulnerably at the Lodge, and to his surprise Voldemort recoiled. Astonished, Harry remembered that Voldemort could not stand when he was thinking about love.

Suddenly an incredible thought hit him. Could he possess Voldemort? Harry quickly focused on the happiest thing he could remember, like he would to conjure a Patronus, and let Draco's face fill their conjoined mind. Immediately he felt Voldemort's mind shrink away, retreating backwards deeper into his brain.

'_Potter_,' the Dark Lord hissed in pain.

'Let Kreacher free,' Harry thought, forcefully, and to his utter astonishment the invisible ropes around the elf seemed to slacken. He was, somehow, in control.

'You are too weak to control me Potter,' hissed Voldemort.

'Really?' Harry said. "_Come Nagini_," he hissed though Voldemort's mouth.

'No!' the Dark Lord said, and Harry realized that he was afraid. Why? 

Then the answer came to him. Nagini was a Horcrux. Horcruxes could be destroyed by the person who created them. There was a thump in the corner and the great snake fell from the shunned couch in the corner and slinked across the room to Harry's feet. Harry raised his wand and mustered his will to perform the spell.

'How long have you been in love with Draco Malfoy?' Voldemort inquired scathingly.

Harry nearly dropped his wand and he only just barely managed to retain control of his mind. Nagini slithered around his ankles.

'Oh yes, Potter. Didn't you realize I could see those memories you were hurling at me? Very _enlightening_, they were.'

Harry swallowed. He wand hand trembled. He was losing control.

'You're weak, Potter. Weak like your parents. Weak like your hero the _great_ Albus Dumbledore.'

Fury flared in Harry. He made an instant decision. 'You aren't too strong yourself without your Horcruxes, are you?' he thought viciously.

Harry felt Voldemort's shock radiating through their minds and he raised his wand, pointing it at the snake. "_Avada Kedavra_!"

The snake slumped to the floor, motionless, Harry heard an ear-splitting '_No!_' and a blast of devastating, rage-fueled pain sent him flying back into his own body.

He was on the floor, slumped against his bed. Draco was beside him, calling his name. The door burst open, Tonks and Remus framed in the light from the hall.

"Kreacher, come," Harry panted, and then he fainted.

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

There were voices talking around him and the sheets of the bed he was lying in scratched his bare chest. His hands were pinned under the tight covers like a swaddle infant's and he was propped up on hard, thin pillows. Even though his head throbbed horribly he forced himself to open his eyes slightly.

It took him only a moment to realize that he was in the hospital wing at Hogwarts. The soft pink light of dawn filtered in through the high clerestory windows, colouring the sterile white linins and warming the dull stone walls. There were voices around him; several people were clustered around his bed and conversing in lone tones.

"..woke up, and he was writhing on the floor," a voice murmured, and Harry realized that Draco was sitting by his side, holding his hand.

"Did he say anything?" Ron's voice asked from Harry's other side. If his friend thought there was anything odd in Draco and Harry holding hands then he did not show it.

"He was mumbling, but I couldn't tell what he was saying," Draco continued, hushed. "Then he kind of came to for a second and called Kreacher. Then he passed out and left me to deal with the crazy elf-"

There was a gasp in Ron's direction and Hermione's voice joined the conversation. "He actually came this time when Harry called him?" she said, shocked. "That must mean…"

"The enchantment holding him was broken?" Remus Lupin offered from the foot of Harry's bed. "I believe so Hermione. Though it hardly seems that it will matter; the elf is quite insane. Whatever they did to him did nothing to improve his already fragile mind; that is certain."

"Surely there is something we can do, though? Send him to St. Mungos?" Hermione's distress was apparent, and Harry felt a SPEW campaign coming.

"They will not admit house elves, Hermione," Remus said regretfully.

Suddenly there was a long BANG as the doors to the Hospital Wing were flung open. Harry could no longer pretend to be asleep, and so he rubbed his eyes reluctantly and sat up. Tonks was striding up the ward, her eyes wild.

"Remus! Remus, kids, you have to read this!" She was clutching a copy of the Daily Prophet in her fist. As she drew level with the bed, Harry saw that that her hands were shaking. She cleared her throat and began to read the front headline:

_**CONTROVERSIAL CHANGES IN DETAINMENT LAW GO INTO EFFECT **_

_In a highly unpopular move very uncharacteristic of his past actions in office, Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour has shocked the Wizarding community of Britain by introducing a new set of laws, called the Wizarding Safety Act, that give his office supreme power to question, detain and even arrest persons of suspicion without giving reason or providing any proof. _

_Outraged citizens rallied against the decision of yesterday morning, which some are going so far as to calling unlawful and even evil. _

"_As if we didn't have enough to worry about with You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters up and down the country, now we have to fear undeserved persecution from our own government! The Ministry should be trying to make us feel safe, not becoming another terror," a distraught Peter Davis, father of two, told _The Daily Prophet_ yesterday afternoon. _

_Other voices of dissent included Fred Weasley, co-owner of the popular joke shop _Weasley's Wizard Wheezes_. "The Ministry shouldn't be wasting its time detaining everyone who looks at them funny, they should be hunting Voldemort!" the unusually serious Mr. Weasley vented yesterday evening. When contacted for follow-up comments, however, both men were conspicuously unavailable._

_The regulations passed were of particular controversy because of one particular clause, which states that, 'any Death Eater, dangerous magical creature or Ministry dissenter or any person found to be aiding, harbouring or closely related to such a person can be detained at the Ministry's sole discretion for an unlimited amount of time.'_

_Several critics have furiously pointed out that this would include any family or friends of vampires, Veela, giants, werewolves and many other part-humans as well as the people themselves under the 'dangerous magical creature' clause alone. Several prominent families and figures in the community have already been detained._

_In addition, the broad term 'Ministry dissenter' could be applied to nearly anyone who criticises the Ministry's (obviously justified and fabulous) policies. People are afraid to speak their minds for fear that they will be considered a radical and get their family thrown in jail. _

_Most controversially of all, however, is the fact that the ruling calls for the immediate arrest of Harry Potter. Mr. Potter, who many are calling the Chosen One for the belief that only he can defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, is rumoured to have aided fugitive and suspected Death Eater Draco Malfoy in escape from the Knight Bus this past summer. Several witnesses report that Potter fought off wizards and witches attempting to detain Mr. Malfoy. _

_The Ministry is appealing to families and friends of these so called 'dangerous individuals' to turn them in, saying that such an act would result in immunity from Ministry suspicion and punishment. _

Tonks' knuckles were white as she finished reading. She crumpled the paper violently and, with a force Harry had never seen her express, threw it against the wall above Harry's head. Six pairs of eyes watched it smash against the wall and fell into Harry's lap.

"You're awake," Draco said, staring at Harry without really seeing him.

There was a dreadful silence for a few more seconds before Remus murmured, "Dangerous magical creatures…"

Tonks gave the paper that Harry was unfolding again a last furious glare and then went to hug her boyfriend.

Hermione's voice shook as she spoke next, "But, this means that Remus…and Tonks…"

Ron joined in, sounding as shell-shocked as Draco, "And Harry…and Draco, obviously…"

Remus looked up and gave them a tired look. "I don't think you appreciate the scope of this law Ron. Of course Draco is in trouble as he was before and Harry is now in trouble for associating with him, but now in addition to that you are guilty for associating with _Harry_."

He let these words sink in for a moment before continuing, "Everyone here can be arrested. Ron, your whole family is in danger for their closeness to Harry, you brothers' open contempt for the Ministry and because of Fleur. Hagrid is half-giant, so he and anybody known to support him can be detained without question."

"If I didn't know better, it would sound like this whole law is set up to arrest people who are close to Harry and the Order. Harry alone could be arrested for knowing Draco, Hagrid, Fleur, any of the Weasleys or Remus," Hermione said, and even as she said it Harry felt of swoop of dread in his stomach.

He was staring down at the picture that headed the article Tonks had just read. The caption under it read "_Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour and the Head of the Department of Law Enforcement, Pius Thicknesse, sign new law yesterday_" and the picture showed two men shaking hands. Scrimgeor smiled his lion-like smile, as if imagining all the prey waiting for him out in the world, and holding his hand was a short wizard with graying black hair and a pinched face.

"He's a Death Eater," Harry said slowly.

The others turned to him. "Who?" Remus asked.

"Pius Thicknesse," Harry said.

"_The Head of the Department of Law Enforcement!?_" Tonks said incredulously.

"Harry," Draco asked, "How could you know that? He wasn't with Voldemort when I was still a Death Eater."

Harry glanced meaningfully at Draco, Ron and Hermione. With his usual perceptiveness, Remus cleared his throat, placed his hand on Tonks' back, and steered her from the room. The four of them were left alone, and Harry recounted to them what had happened the night before.

Hermione was aghast, "He possessed you again? You possessed _him_?"

Ron was more jubilant. "Alright Harry! Now all we have to do is destroy the locket!"

Draco spoke then, "No, Weasley, first we have to _find_ the locket, and _then_ we can destroy it."

Ron waved an airy hand, but Harry was not so optimistic. "He knows I know about the Horcruxes now, so it won't be long before he discovers that we have destroyed them all. We have to find the locket quickly and then I…I have to…"

"But how do we find the locket?" Hermione said, sounding slightly panicked.

"Kreacher?" Ron suggested.

"I thought he was crazy?" Harry said.

"He is, apparently, completely barking," Ron said.

Draco could not keep the scorn out of his voice as he retorted, "So Weasley, how do you plan on getting the location out of him then?"

The optimistic tone was gone when Ron rounded on Draco, "Well, have you got any brilliant ideas Malfoy?"

"Enough!" Harry said loudly, and his friend and boyfriend both fell silent. "Ron has a point. Now that Kreacher is free, we might as well talk to him."

When nobody objected to this, Harry cleared his throat slightly and commanded, "Kreacher, come here."

Instantly there was a loud CRACK and a filthy and disheveled house elf appeared beside the chair that Draco was sitting in.

"Master Regulus," Kreacher bowed deeply. "How can Kreacher serve you today, Master?"

Taken aback, it took Harry a few moments to reply. "I'm not Regulus, Kreacher. I am your new Master, Harry. Do you remember me?"

Kreacher's bowed head snapped up, and his demeanor changed rapidly. "Filth," he growled, "Unworthy filth, you are not my Master."

A house elf that Harry had not noticed before gasped at Kreacher's words. When Harry turned to look at her, however, she went pink up to the top of her ears and hurried away into a concealed door.

"Uh, yes," Harry said uncertainly. "Be that as it may Kreacher, I need to know where Slytherin's locket is."

He was unprepared for the fury that this unleashed in Kreacher. He started to screamed, kick and fail at them all. Screeching, he bellowed, "Master Regulus is telling me to keep it hidden and I will not betray him for filth!" He ran up to a pile of bedpans nearby and started to throw them at the four of them. All three of his companions leapt to their feet.

"KREACHER!" Harry bellowed back, ducking to avoid a bedpan that Hermione blasted away with a Reductor curse and jumping out of bed. "TELL ME WHERE THE LOCKET IS, NOW!"

There was a howl of rage and anguish, and the bedpans stopped flying. Kreacher was banging his face hard into a bedpan that he clutched in both hands, howling, "_No! No! No!_"

"Harry, let him stop!" Hermione pleaded, and when Harry did nothing she erupted in fury. "You're just as bad as He is, torturing him for your own good!"

"DON'T YOU DARE!" Harry rounded on her. "_What the hell else can I do Hermione, huh?_" His wand was pointed less than a foot from her face.

"Oi!" Ron shouted, joining the fray, "Back off mate!"

Hermione glanced again at the still-howling Kreacher, shot Harry a look of disbelieving disgust and turned on her heel, stalking from the room. After one more second, Ron followed.

"_No! No! No!" _

"Kreacher, SHUT UP!" Harry cried, and the elf fell silent. Harry took several deep breaths before he was calm enough to say, "You don't have to tell me Kreacher, but I want you to go to the Headmistresses office and sit there without communicating to anyone in anyway. Do you understand?"

Immediately the elf stopped punishing himself and stopped yelling. He fixed Harry with a triumphant and lunatic stare and then there was another crack and he was gone.

Harry sunk back onto the bed, suddenly exhausted. Draco had resumed his seat, and now the two of them stared at each other silently. It occurred to Harry that it was unusual that the matron had not intervened yet, and he looked about for Mme. Pomfrey. Unable to see her, he turned back to Draco.

"He knows," he said heavily.

"Who?"

"Voldemort. He knows about us," Harry said, letting his head fall back onto the pillow. Disconnectedly he explained exactly how he had repelled Voldemort, a detail he had omitted in his rendition to Ron and Hermione.

"I see," Draco said slowly.

"Yeah," Harry said, unable to think of anything else to say. They sat in silence for what was probably a few seconds but felt like hours. Harry was sure that Draco would get angry, would reprimand him for being so careless, but he did not.

"I'm glad you are ok," was all the Slytherin had to say. He got up from his chair and lay down in the bed beside Harry, head on his chest. Harry pressed a kiss into his soft hair and inhaled the scent of his boyfriend deeply. He felt his nerves relax just a bit, and he closed his eyes again.

Harry might have drifted off to sleep and he was unsure of how long they lay there, but suddenly, and for the second time that day, there was a loud BANG and the doors flew open. Ron and Hermione stood framed in the doorway.

Harry watched in frozen horror as his friends took in his and Draco's current position, but after a few moments of surprised staring both of them seemed to collect themselves. There was urgency in Ron's voice as he said, "Harry, you've got co-"

But he never finished the sentence, because he voice was drowned out by a noise so loud that Harry winced. Somebody was speaking and their voice echoed over the grounds into the castle. It was a high, feathery, girly voice, and hearing it here again made Harry's stomach lurch.

"_Hem, hem. Minerva McGonagall, we members of the Ministry are here to arrest you for being a Ministry dissenter and for harbouring fugitives. Kindly surrender yourself and these fugitives or we will, regrettably, be forced to take you by force._"

Harry dashed to the window. Staring out over the grounds he could just make out a group of people standing at the gate to Hogwarts. The Ministry had come for them.


	15. Argus Filch's Squib Underground

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Thank you to_ **Faerylark** (or not so lovely), **Maria** (thanks for all your reviews! Does anybody like Umbridge?), **Moony** (bad things do seem to happen to those boys, don't they?), **orene** **treke** (I'm very glad you like it so far, can't wait to see what you write!) and **acidxlullaby** (oh, please don't die! I'll tell you what happens right now!) _for their wonderful reviews. Please keep it up! This one is for you guys!_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Argus Filch's Squib Underground**

"Ron, Hermione, what's going on?" Harry asked in confusion, turning to look at them.

Hermione moaned. "Harry, it's Scrimgeour, he's come for McGonagall and every student who've got 'radical' parents. Hurry, McGonagall is explaining it all in the Great Hall!"

With that she and Ron took off back down the hall, followed by Draco and Harry. They dashed down three floors, skidded across the Entrance Hall and burst through the Great Hall doors. McGonagall looked up as they entered and stopped talking. Every eye in the Hall followed her gaze, so that every student's anxious face was suddenly turned towards the foursome. Harry suddenly became acutely aware that he and Draco were only wearing boxers.

Hurriedly, Ron and Hermione led Harry and Draco to the Gryffindor table where Ginny, Luna, and Neville were sitting. Draco looked momentarily apprehensive until he spotted another Slytherin also sitting there. Beside Ginny was her young cousin, Mafalda, who had forgone the company of her house in favour of her family in such a crisis. Harry, Draco, Ron and Hermione sat hastily, though heads continued to crane to see them.

"As I was saying," McGonagall continued fluidly, "We will need to evacuate you all. Mr. Filch has informed me of several secret passages by which we can send you all out of the grounds without the Ministry knowing and at their ends a Hogwarts teacher will be waiting with Portkeys to send you home. I must go coordinate this now. Please listen to your Head Boy and Girl, as they will give you additional instruction."

Hermione stood beside Harry and walked to the front of the hall, where she was joined by a boy he recognised as Blaise Zabini.

"Right," Blaise said, clearing his throat. "When the Headmistress gives the order, Prefects will lead their house to one of the four escape tunnels. From there you will walk through and meet a Hogwarts teacher, who will create a Portkey to your home. For this reason, the Headmistress has asked that families evacuate together, regardless of House."

Harry saw Mafalda grip Ginny's arm tighter. Her scared face was one of many in the Hall.

"Now," Hermione chimed in. "For many of you it is not safe to go home because your families themselves are in danger. In that case the Headmistress suggests you stay here in the Great Hall and a different method of protection will have to be found. All your families have been informed of this and they are either waiting for you at home or on their way here."

"If we can have silence for a moment," Blaise said, for murmuring had started to fill the Hall. "We are going to read a list of students who should not return home."

"Abercrombie, Euan," Hermione read. "Addams, Matilda. Bones, Susan."

"We are staying, no matter what, right?" Ron said suddenly, turning to Harry.

"Yeah," Harry said, looking away from Hermione, who was still listing names. "Well, I am, and you and Ginny have to stay."

"And me," a small voice said, and Harry looked at Mafalda. 'Of course,' he thought; she was a Weasley.

"I don't have to stay," Neville said from beside Luna, "but I am. I just have to tell Gran to come and get safe. I doubt they would bother Mum and Dad…" Neville trailed off.

"I am also staying," Luna murmured, staring at the ceiling. "My father is quite safe I expect. He is off hunting Fluffering Dangawerts in Morrocco right now."

"Uh, right," Harry said, grinning despite himself. "Well, that makes seven of us."

"I expect it will be a lot more," Neville said confidently. "We started up Dumbledore's Army again while you were gone Harry. It's been very popular, especially because we haven't had to do it in secret. We've got nearly forty members now."

"_Forty_?" Harry repeated, incredulous, just as Hermione rounded up her list with a dispirited 'Weasley, Ron.'

"That's funny," Dean said from just a bit down the table. "She didn't call any Death Eater's kids."

Just then the Headmistress came back into the room, holding in her hands four bottles of paper clips. Hagrid followed her in, but remained by the doors. "Prefects!" she called, striding down the center aisle. "Please would one member of each house come and get a jar from me? The person holding the jar must go first and these clips will be the Portkeys that send everyone home."

There was some shuffling and reorganizing then as four Prefects headed to the front of the room. Harry recognised Demelza Robbins, who got up for the Gryffindor table, and recognised the Ravenclaw Prefect but could not recall his name. Meanwhile, the people who had family in other houses were finding each other and sitting again. Hermine re-joined them and Padma Patil dropped into the seat beside her sister, giving Draco a rather startled look.

"Ravenclaw, please follow your Prefects in an orderly way out of the Hall. Hufflepuff, Slytherin and the Gryffindor please follow in that order," McGonagall commanded calmly. The Ravenclaw Prefect stood and began to lead her house from the Hall. As she passed Harry, he saw the faintest trace of fear in her face. He smiled at her and she smiled back, encouraged. Next, the Hufflepuffs trailed out after a square-jawed but friendly looking boy. Now Harry could see the empty tables that lay between Gryffindor and Slytherin and he realise that either Hermione's list had been longer than he had thought or Neville had been right. There were dozens of students still in their seats.

"ARG!" somebody cried, several other screamed in fright and Harry spun in his seat to look at the doors. The tail end of Slytherin had been going though the doors, but it seemed several were unable to go through. Apparently, as he had tried to pass the doorway Crabbe had been blasted back. He was almost instantly joined on the floor by Goyle, and Theodore Nott. Meanwhile, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode and Daphne Greengrass had turned and were standing in the Entrance Hall, staring in bewilderment at their friends. Hagrid stepped forward quickly and to the astonishment of all in the Hall, grabbed the three boys by they robes.

"Death Eaters!" he growled. Goyle reached belatedly for his wand, but he was too late. Susan Bones, Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbot had risen almost as one and Stunned the Slytherins in Hagrid's grip. Harry looked around for the Head Boy and found that Blaise was rising from his seat.

Daphne and Millicent gave frightened little yelps and dashed off to re-join the Slytherin cue, which was being hurried out of the Entrance Hall by Professor Flitwick. Pansy, however, still stared down at her housemates. "Death Eaters?" she said, as if the word was foreign, and Harry felt sudden and unexpected sympathy for her. Had she really not known?

Blaise had reached Pansy. He walked through the doorway and gently laid his hand on Pansy's arm, leading her back to the Slytherin table.

"Are there anymore Death Eaters in my school?!" demanded Professor McGonagall angrily. Nobody spoke, but Harry noticed that several heads down the Gryffindor table swerved reluctantly towards Draco. Harry gave them a fierce glare, though he felt slightly less intimidating wearing only Snitch-patterned boxers and his glasses than he normally did.

The rest of Gryffindor house filed out without incident; apparently there were no Death Eaters in Harry's house. Once they were gone Harry could look around properly. Blaise and Pansy sat alone at the Slytherin table; the Head Boy still had his arm draped over her shoulders. Ernie, Hannah and Susan were at the end of the Hufflepuff table, joined by several sixth years Harry knew only by face. Halfway down the table were a scared looking group of third and second years that Harry guessed had been asked to stay behind.

It was a similar story at the Ravenclaw table. DA members Terry Boot, Michael Corner, and Anthony Goldstein were joined by Lisa Turpin and several sixth and fifth years. Two tiny first year twins sat with a girl from Hufflepuff who could only be their older sister at the other end of the table.

Harry was surprised as he looked down the Gryffindor table; it was almost half full. Aside from every one of his year mates, Ginny, Luna, Mafalda, Padma and Draco, there were also Romilda Vane, her and her bubbly friends unusually subdued, both Creevey brothers and beaters Peakes and Coote, along with several of their friends. All of them looked ready to fight. At the very end of the table, third year Euan Abercrombie and his sister, a first year by the look if it, sat huddled together. Harry wondered what their parents had done to put them in danger.

"Now then," McGonagall said as Hagrid dragged Goyle, Crabbe and Millicent into the corner unceremoniously. "Who here has disobeyed my orders to leave and is staying here for the sake of foolish bravado?"

Many of the older students' hands went sheepishly up. McGonagall looked stern. "You realise that by fighting you are putting your families in jeopardy?"

There was a general nodding of heads and muttered 'yes's before McGonagall continued. "Very well, I will contact your families. As for the students who _cannot_ go home, your families have, for the most part, already arrived."

Right on cue the doors of the Great Hall pushed open and in walked the families of the assembled students along with what seemed to be the entire Order of the Pheonix. Tonks and Lupin lead them in, apparently having dashed off to summon the Order when they had left Harry. Everyone got up to search out their parents and suddenly everyone had walked in a different direction. Ginny, spotting Charlie through the milling crowd, darted off, leaving Mafalda standing alone. Her lip quivered slightly, and Harry wondered what had happened to the bossy, obnoxious child of Christmas. He held out his arm to her and, looking surprised but intensely grateful, she took it. Together they looked for the scattered Weasleys.

It took nearly a quarter of an hour for everyone to find their families and resume their seats. Harry sat with Draco on his left and Mafalda on his right in the middle of a throng of Weasleys. In addition to the family, Luna and Hermione, who did not have family to worry about, and Neville, whose Gran was not yet there, sat around them. There were two people conspicuously absent, however.

"Mum, where are the twins?" Ginny asked, concerned.

Mr. Weasley gave them a dark look. "Taken, we figure, by the Ministry. Your brother should learn to keep his mouth closed."

"What do you mean?" Ron asked.

"The comments in the newpaper?" Hermione asked. The Weasley parents nodded.

"_They arrested him for telling them they should be fighting Voldemort?_" Ron asked, incredulous.

"Ron, the Minister is not being rational. It would seem he is getting as paranoid as Fudge…" Mr. Weasley began, but Harry interrupted.

"I think he's been Imperiused," he said, slightly more loudly than he had intended. The thought had been forming in his mind ever since he had seen the photo that morning.

"Pardon?" Mr. Weasley said, though he could not not have heard.

"I think Scrimgeour is under an Imperius curse," Harry said again. "Pius Thickneese, he's a Death Eater, I've seen him with Voldemort. I think he's Imperiused the Minister."

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

By the time that the rest of the DA family members had arrived at Hogwarts, entering through the same passages that the students had left by, McGonagall had gotten everyone to set about shoring up the defences around the castle. The Ministry members outside were not waiting for them to be prepared, however. Scrimgeour had assembled a team of wizards to dismantle the charms that prevented them from getting onto the grounds. Harry and Draco could hear the raised voices as they walked through the Entrance Hall after securing the windows of the second floor classrooms against blasting hexes.

As Harry pushed open the huge wooden doors of the Great Hall, Professor McGonagall was conversing with the members of the Order and the remaining staff. She sounded agitated as she said, "Well, Hogwarts will not stand up for very long against a full scale Ministry attack as it is now. We have to find a way to raise the defences, or we will have to surrender."

"_Surrender_?" Remus Lupin asked, incredulous. "Surely, Minerva, there must be another way?"

The rest of the Order looked at him miserably, as if they too could not see a way out of the predicament they were in. Harry, however, thought he might have an idea. He cleared his throat, "Excuse me, Professor?"

Both Remus and McGonagall looked up, and the Headmistress, catching sight of him, said, "Oh Potter. The second floor is seen too? Very well, if you could please–"

"Sorry, Professor," Harry interrupted her as politely as he could. "I think I may have an idea."

McGonagall looked at him briefly in surprise, and then looked around the table. When the rest of her colleagues seemed up to listening to Harry, she said, "Very well Potter, what is it?"

Harry traced his foot nervously on the flagstone as he spoke. "I was thinking, couldn't we hide?"

There was a very loud bang outside, and Bill gasped. "The gates!" he exclaimed, and he and Tonks both rose and ran from the room. McGonagall looked at Harry beseechingly, "Hide _where_, Potter?"

"Well, Mountain Goat Lodge, for one," Harry said. Draco, beside him, looked at him in surprise, but then he smiled. Encouraged, Harry explained, "We already have one safe house where Voldemort or the Ministry can't find us."

"The Lodge," McGonagall said patiently, "Will not hold fifty students and their families."

But the other Order members seemed to be following Harry's train of thought. "Our house would hold more," Mrs. Weasley said at once.

"And mine is already well protected," Moody, sitting behind McGonagall, growled.

"What about the Hog's Head?" Mr. Weasley suggested. "Aberforth would surely…"

"Mrs. Figg's house," Harry finished. "It's in my old neighbourhood, surrounded by Muggle families. They would never go looking there."

"How would we get the wards up?" McGonagall asked, clearly thinking they were all taking nonsense. "And that would _still_ not be enough room…"

"Professor?" grumbled a voice from the corner, startling them all. Filch had entered the Great Hall without their noticing. He now looked imploringly at McGonagall. When she did not stop him, he continued, slightly embarrassed, "I have several friends…several Squib friends. We have all been feeling very vulnerable lately and I know several who would welcome more protection, even if it came with several houseguests…?"

Harry gaped at Filch, trying to imagine being his houseguest and marvelling that the caretaker actually had friends. McGonagall looked around at them all. The resistance had left her voice when she asked again, "How would we set up the wards in time?"

"We could go now," Mr. Weasley said, indicating himself and Mrs. Weasley and rising from his seat.

McGonagall put her face in her hands for a moment and stood very still, thinking. Finally she looked up and Harry noticed the change in her demeanor at once. "Very well," she said briskly. "Arthur, Molly, if you will go and place all the necessary wards on your home. Alastor and Remus, would you see to your respective homes as well?"

They nodded, and without another word they were striding from the hall. McGonagall turned to the staff members. "Horace, Filius, Pomona, do you feel confident setting up wards?

Slughorn, Filtwick and Sprout all nodded. "Good," McGonagall continued. "Argus, if you would please show them to you friends' houses? Horace, if you could see to the Hog's Head?"

"I'll go visit Arabella," said Charlie Weasley, who had so far sat silently. He rose, following Filch and the Professors, and headed out the doors.

Suddenly and awkwardly Harry and Draco were left alone with Professor McGonagall and a very bemused Professor Trelawny, who Harry had only just noticed. The Divination teacher seemed very out of place and very small in her many shawls and necklaces.

Harry cleared his throat. Draco rubbed his nose absently. Trelawny actually hummed. McGonagall stared at them all.

Then all of a sudden there was an explosion of noise. Dozens of feet were running in the Entrance Hall and there were ground-shaking rumbles as the great oak front doors of the castle were battered with curses from outside. As one the four of them dashed out of the Great Hall. Harry looked back, catching one last glimpse of the still-unconscious Goyle, Crabbe and Nott.

Outside there was chaos. The doors shook violently and Harry could hear shouts of "_Reducto!_" from outside. "Get everyone up to the higher floors!" He yelled, pushing his way through a crowd of students and their families. "Come on everyone, they are going to break in!"

Frightened herds of people fluxed up the stairs to the upper floors, led on by the Patil twins, Hermione and Luna. Harry spotted most of the DA ushering people up. Little Dennis Creevey, who though now in fourth year still stood only to Harry's nose, was the last up. He was hauling his two frightened Muggle parents away from Colin who, as always, was insisting on staying and helping Harry.

Finally Harry was left standing in the nearly empty Entrance Hall, which had fallen silent except for the rumbling and buckling doors. Aside from Colin, he was joined by Professor McGonagall, Draco, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Seamus, Head Boy Blaise Zabini, and Tonks and Bill, the only two Order members to have stayed behind. They stood in silence spaced through the hall, watched the doors shake and waited.

"Don't let them go up the stairs," Harry said, his voice cutting the silence.

All at once the great doors burst open. There was a scream of triumph from outside and people surged through the door. Almost immediately Harry was duelling a plump witch with a bright blue robes. Her duelling was half-hearted, as if she was unsure why she was there. It was obvious who was here on Ministry orders and who was secretly attacking for Voldemort. Several times Harry heard a Killing curse used, which no Ministry Law Enforcement would ever evoke on duty. After no more than a few minutes it was obvious that they would never be able to hold the Ministry in the Entrance Hall. Harry was being pushed backwards towards the stairs along with the rest of his comrades; soon they would be on the second floor.

Finally managing to Stun the witch with which he was duelling, Harry took his chance. He ducked inside a broom cupboard to his left; the same he had hidden Crabbe and Goyle in second year. Plunging his hands into his pocket he searched and came up with a scrap of parchment. Snatching a quill from a shelf above him he furiously scribbled a message.

_Hermione_

_Ministry too powerful_

_Hide everyone in the Room of Requirement _

The parchment glowed hot when he stopped writing and after a second the message disappeared. He could only hope Hermione got it in time.

Bursting out of the broom cupboard again, Harry pelted after the nearest Ministry members, who were now on the stairs. Running up from behind, he Stunned several of them. They tottered and then slide head first back to the flagstone, and as they went past Harry recognised Perkins, the old wizard that Mr. Weasley had worked with at the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.

"Sorry!" he called to the man as he ran past, blocking and returning several curses in his fight to reach the advancing edge of the battle. Then, spotting Ron, he called, "Ron, get them to the old DA headquarters as soon as you can!"

As he ran he passed many people he knew fighting on both sides, until he eventually caught up with Bill, who was duelling none other than the Minister for Magic. One look in his eyes, dull and lifeless, told Harry he had been right.

"Don't hurt him!" Harry urged as he passed the eldest Weasley. "He's Imperiused!"

Bill gave a small grunt of reply as he parried a Cruciatus curse hurled at him by Scrimgeour. Harry ran on until finally he reached a section of hall where there was nobody. Taking one last look at the battling pairs behind him, he dashed up the stairs to the upper levels. He came to a skidding halt outside the stretch of wall where the Room of Requirement was.

"I need a place to hide a lot of people," he thought desperately. If they weren't there….

The door appeared on his third walk past and Harry wrenched it open. The room had transformed into a large amphitheatre with a ceiling of glass that flooded the entire place with light. Looking down from perhaps twenty feet of stone steps, Harry could see nearly two hundred people crowded at the bottom. Hagrid stood amongst them, nearly twice as tall as anyone else. Hermione was standing halfway between them, clearly waiting for Harry. Her face was worried as she ran up to him.

"Harry, what's going on?"

He explained the evacuation plan to her briefly and at the end she gave a small smile. "Argus Filch, head of the Squib Underground?" she said. "I wouldn't fancy being his houseguest." Harry smiled reluctantly.

"Harry!" he heard a voice call down the hall from the door. He turned. Tonks was flying up the stairs from the sixth floor, Mr. Weasley at her heels.

"Harry, it's done," Mr. Weasley panted. "The safe houses are all set up. There are seven: the Burrow, the Lodge, the Hog's Head, Moody's, Arabella Figg's, and two friends of Filch. I've got all the information here. The plan is to send several families to each place, accompanied by two of the Order and several older DA members. Each house will have a Secret Keeper, and not even the people brought there will be told where they are. It's the best protection we can get. There is one problem, however. We had expected to evacuate through the secret passages, but from up here…"

He trailed off weakly. Harry turned to Hermione. "Hermione, the one-eyed witch on the third floor, ask the room for a passage to there. I'll try to keep the fighters up here."

There were sounds of fighting coming up the stairs now. Harry nodded, turning now to Mr. Weasley. "Start sending them off. The ones of us out here can go last, to the Burrow. Hurry! Get inside!"

Hermione, Mr. Weasley and Tonks ducked into the Room of Requirement just as the first of the duellers appeared around the corner. Harry was relieved to see his comrades from the Entrance Hall still fighting. They had been joined by the returning Order and staff members. To his utter astonishment, Harry saw Professor Trelawny duelling alongside her colleagues. He did not ever remember having seen her use her wand before. Then he realised: Ron and Draco were nowhere to be seen.

Remus appeared seemingly from nowhere beside Harry as he flooded with fear, throwing down an opponent with an Impediment jinx. "Harry," he said, relieved. Then he did a double take. "Where are your robes?"

"Oh," Harry said, blushing. He had forgotten he wore only his boxers. His wand sliced the air between him and the nearest Ministry witch.

"Harry, they are getting nastier and nastier," Remus waved his free hand at the attackers. "Most of the one's we haven't managed to beat yet are Imperiused…or Death Eaters. They are aiming to kill."

Harry turned, shocked, just as a jet of green light shot between him and Remus. They both threw themselves sideways to opposite sides of the halls. Harry was forced to duck as a Stunning spell whizzed over his head, hitting a tall Indian wizard instead.

"Harry!" Remus called again. "Have you seen Tonks?!"

"She's fine!" Harry called to the man just before the large blond wizard who had just tried to Stun him managed to hit him with a tongue-locker curse. Unable to speak, Harry thought of the only nonverbal curse he had ever managed. 'Levicorpus!' he commanded, hating himself for using Snape's spell. The wizard was hoisted into the air, and Harry tossed him back down the hall where he skidded and fell, unconscious. The spell on Harry broke.

"Potter," a fluttery voice said calmly from behind him. He turned, anger flooding him and making him slightly dizzy. Dolores Umbridge was standing there, wand at the ready. Her hair was messy and her pink robes were a bit dirty, as if she had been on the floor, but otherwise she was unhurt. Most infuriatingly, as Harry looked into her eyes he saw that she was completely lucid. She was here because she wanted to be.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry bellowed, but Umbridge managed to dodge him. Behind her, Ginny's wand sailed from her hand. Neville, of all people, caught it and tossed it back.

"Potter, you have clearly not learned much since I last taught you," Umbridge said, her voice much less fluffy now. "Harbouring a Death Eater. I suppose you just wanted some more attention?"

"Stupefy!" Harry cursed. Umbridge dodged it again. Harry wondered if the people in the Room of Requirement had been evacuated yet.

"No, no, Potter," Umbridge said sweetly. "Crucio!"

"Protego!" Harry said with satisfaction; Umbridge was supposed to have taught him this spell.

"Mesomus!" a voice Harry recognised yelled very loudly. His heart leapt into his throat.

"Bonrevus!" another voice called, and Harry saw a blond witch stop in her tracks behind Umbridge. The woman got a very wistful look on her face and then actually sat down, revealing Ron.

"Patented Daydream Charms!" Ron said gleefully. "We just got them from Fred and George's!" He waved his hand through the thinning crowd of duellers and Harry caught sight of Draco. He grinned.

"_Hem, hem._ Mr. Potter, I was speaking with you?" Umbridge said loudly.

Harry turned on her, grin fading. "Oh I don't know, _Professor_, were you? I didn't care enough to pay attention." Draco and Ron continued to shoot daydream charms at the Ministry officials, and one by one they fell into stupors with vague smiles on their faces and drool dripping from their mouths.

"Stupefy!" Umbridge said, her voice shrill and angry, all trace of sweetness gone. When Harry dodged her curse, she howled in frustration. "Potter! I am a senior Ministry official! If you would only help us arrest the convict Malfoy and admit you were wrong…"

Harry looked around just as Ron sent the last fighting Ministry wizard into a highly colourful and realistic daydream. There were bodies everywhere on the ground now, and Harry wasn't sure whether friend or foe. He turned to Umbridge, smiling maliciously. "I'm sorry Professor, I'm not supposed to tell lies," he said, and Stunned her in the face.


	16. The Burrow

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Thank you to _**Faerylark** (in _snitch_ boxers too!), **Maria** (yay, signed reviews!), **Tarkmelhion** (I don't think Harry is ready to kill anyone just yet!), **Maisy** (thank you! i hope you holiday was good), **Lydia** (thanks you very much for reviewing, then!), **acidxlullaby** (it made me giggle too, haha) and **Moony** (you reply tome, I reply to you and we all end up happy :D) _for their reviews! This chapter is for you!_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**The Burrow**

Harry was spinning through nothingness, his senses reeling, and then suddenly his feet were slammed onto hard ground. Dropping Ron's shoe, which had been turned into a Portkey, Harry turned immediately to tend to the wounded around him. Tonks, Ron, Bill, Seamus, and Draco lay in shambles on the ground, unhurt. Hermione stood beside him, clutching a cut on her left arm but otherwise fine. Blaise and Ginny were far worse off. Ginny was bleeding from a long cut across her chest, courtesy of Rufus Scrimgeour himself, and Blaise's wand arm was apparently broken. The Head Boy's face was badly burned; somebody had set his hair on fire. Harry could not help but respect the wounded boy as he struggled to his feet and began to haul Ron from the ground.

In hindsight, Harry knew that they had gotten off easy in this battle. Besides Ginny and Blaise only Slughorn and Charlie had been seriously hurt, the rest of them escaping with scrapes and singes. Both Slughorn, victim of a suit of armor bewitched by a Ministry official, and Charlie, who had been tortured for nearly an hour by the Cruciatus curse, had both been sent to Moody's house where Mme. Pomfrey had evacuated to.

"Oh thank heavens!" called Mrs. Weasley, running up the yard. Behind her stood the Burrow, its dirt front yard full of footprints and its windows full of curious faces. The mid-afternoon sun shone from just behind the precariously balanced house, making the grass under Harry's trainers shine unnaturally brightly.

Mrs. Weasley reached them and flung her arms around her youngest children and then Harry. "You're safe, thank goodness. Arthur said you were still fighting…" her voice trailed off. There was a quaver in her tone when she asked, "Where's Charlie?"

Bill opened his mouth to explain, but just then there was a cry of "Bill!" from nearby, and Fleur Delacour was flying across the dirt toward them. Bill caught her as she ran and him, pulling her into a tight hug and murmuring her name gratefully.

Tonks took the task of explaining to Mrs. Weasley and Mr. Weasley, who had joined them, all that had happened. Harry could not bear to see the worry in their faces and so he turned to the house again as people started to file cautiously out of it.

Dean Thomas was one of the first Harry saw and he was reunited rather awkwardly with Dean's Muggle mother and step-father, along with Dean's two step-brothers, Logan and Mathias. Seamus was enveloped in a hug by a witch who looked very much like him. Harry had very little desire to chat with the Irish boy's parents, who had both believed him a crazy nutter for much of his fifth year.

Suddenly a hand slid into his. Turning to his companion, he saw Draco, looking troubled. "You ok, Harry?" his boyfriend asked quietly. He was eying the reunited families with a mixture of envy and despair.

Harry felt an intense rush of love for the man in front of him. Turning to pull him into the most platonic hug he could manage, Harry murmured, "I thought you'd been…you know…for a minute there. I couldn't find you."

Draco pulled back, aware that they were in a crowded yard of people. He looked much happier for the hug. "You can't get rid of me that easily, Harry," he said, winking in an attempt at humour. Then his smile faltered and Harry followed his gaze to the front steps of the Burrow. There, Pansy Parkinson sat, her pug face screwed up even further by tears, surrounded by Blaise, still burned and broken, and a haughty but very beautiful woman who could only be Blaise's actress mother.

"I'd better go talk to her," Draco said. He gave Harry one more private look and then hurried over to his old friends. Harry turned, looking for his own.

All five remaining Weasleys Tonks and Hermione were still standing around Ron's shoe, which he had not yet replaced. While all of them looked grim, Fleur, still standing in Bill's arms, was looking downright alarmed and dismayed. Hermione also looked deeply troubled. Her eyes flicked across the yard erratically. Harry hurried over.

"…doubt that the damage will be irreversible, but he will be very unstable for a while," Tonks was saying gravely. "We saw this kind of injury sometimes after bad raids in the Aurors; they don't just fix overnight."

There was a very heavy silence for a moment, which Ginny broke by wincing and clutching her chest. Mrs. Weasley seemed to come to herself, herding her youngest daughter and Hermione into the house along with Blaise.

"What happened to Pansy?" Ron asked gently.

"We couldn't find her parents," Mr. Weasley said gravely. "They have been close with the Death Eater crowd, though never actually involved, for many years. We think the Ministry got to them before we could."

"Zat ees 'orrible," Fleur said, sighing. Draco was now helping the still-sobbing Pansy into the house.

"It is," Mr. Weasley agreed. "Incidentally Tonks, your parents wanted you to know that they are remaining at Swandly's house to guard there."

"Swandly?" Harry and Ron asked together.

"Friend of Filch's," Bill replied, disentangling himself from Fleur. "I think we had better get into the house."

Harry looked around again to find the yard deserted. He made to follow Mr. Weasley and Tonks inside, but Ron stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Harry," he said, and his voice was unusually serious. "You and Malfoy…"

Immediately Harry was on the defensive. "What about him?" 

Ron looked a bit uncomfortable. He picked up his shoe and began jamming in onto his foot, not looking up. He cleared his throat. "Are you…seeing each other?" he forced out.

Harry looked in Ron's eyes and he could not lie. Sagging a bit, he looked down, sure he about to lose his best friend, and replied, "Yes."

Ron was silent. After several seconds, Harry looked up. His friend still looked troubled and Harry felt his heart sink. Then Ron surprised him.

"Did you ever really like Ginny?" he asked slightly aggressively.

"What? Of course!" Harry said, surprised.

"So what are you, gay?"

"Ron, I don't know myself. I really liked Ginny, but I also like Draco." There was a long pause.

"Does Ginny know?" he asked.

"Uh…no," Harry said, confused. "Only you know…and Hermione I guess. And Voldemort."

Ron's eyebrows shot into his hair, but he said nothing. Instead, he considered Harry for another moment. "Would you promise not to tell her just yet? She wouldn't take it very well, what with Charlie hurt and the twins missing."

"Uh, sure," Harry said. Barely daring to believe it, he asked, "So you are OK with this?"

Ron didn't look happy, but he nodded. "Hermione reckons, and I agree, that if he makes you happy that's all that matters. But God help him if he hurts you Harry, I will be on him so fast…"

Harry laughed, "I'm not Ginny, Ron. There's no need to be so protective!"

Ron smiled reluctantly, adding after a pause, "Just promise not to snog in front of me too much?"

"I think that's fair," Harry said, just as Draco called to them from the front door.

They walked up to the blonde, who was looking tense. He had finally donned some robes, which were wet with Pansy's tears. "Ron knows," Harry said, smiling.

Draco looked at Ron warily. Ron chuckled, "Relax Malfoy. I'm not going to beat you up for making Harry happy. Be sure that _do_ make him happy."

Draco looked as disbelieving as Harry. "You aren't disgusted, angry, full of rage?"

"Nope," Ron said serenely, obviously enjoying Draco's confusion.

The blonde looked surprised for a moment longer. Then, quite suddenly, he lunged at Harry, bending him over backwards and kissing him full on the lips. Harry grinned and returned the kiss for a second, happiness rushing through him and thawing the last bit of unhappy frost that had lain over Harry since he had possessed Voldemort. Gently he pushed Draco off him. Ron was looking mildly shocked.

Grinning, Harry told Draco, "I promised Ron that we wouldn't snog too much around him."

"Oh, my mistake," Draco said, smirking gleefully. Harry couldn't help it; he grinned back. A muscle twitched in the corner of Ron's mouth as he saw Harry's glowing face, and he simply gave an aggrieved sigh and walked into the house.

"Harry, I was thinking, you have to call Kreacher," Draco said, suddenly serious again.

"Oh yeah!" Harry said, shocked he had forgotten. "Kreacher, come!"

There was a CRACK and Keacher appeared, bowing dutifully but sending Harry a deeply sarcastic look as he did so. Harry glared back. "Kreacher, go inside and help Mrs. Weasley."

The elf shuffled off, muttering. Following him, Harry and Draco stepped into the Weasley's kitchen and living room. It was more full than Harry could have imagined. Hermione, Ginny and Blaise, all their injuries under bandages or thick ointment, sat on stools at the kitchen counter. Blaise's mother sat on the loveseat with Pansy, who had fallen silent at last. The remaining chairs were filled by Dean, Seamus and their parents, who were talking politely. The Weasley's had all taken chairs at the dinning table, where the three boys now joined them. Mr. Weasley tossed him some robes.

"Mr. Weasley," Harry asked, dressing quickly and pulling up a chair. "Where are the rest of the DA and the Order?"

Looking tired, Mr. Weasley answered, "Your friends Neville and Luna are at Mad-Eye's house, along with all of the younger Ravenclaws and Madame Pomfrey. Lavender Brown and the twins from your year…what are their names…well, they are at the Lodge with Professor McGonagall along with that little boy and his sister whose parents were outspokenly anti-Ministry. That large group of girls from Gryffindor, Romilda and her friends I believe Ginny said, are at Swandly's with Tonk's parents. The boys from your Quidditch team –"

"Peakes and Coote," Ron supplied.

"Are at the Hog's Head with their friends and Aberforth. Professors Sprout and Trelawny are at Arabella's house with all of the Hufflepuffs. Professor Flitwick, Hagrid and the Creevey brothers are guarding the rest of the students in danger at Filch's friend Fogbirk's house," he paused. "Have I missed anybody?"

Ron opened his mouth, confusion creasing his face, but he was interrupted by a cry of "EN GARDE!"

Harry whipped around in his chair, wand out, but there was no danger. Mafalda, who Harry had once again forgotten all about, had run past, chased in ernest by Dean's two young brothers, who were each carrying long sticks. They chased each other around the room once before rushing up the stairs laughing, blissfully oblivious to the tension in the room around them.

Just then there was a faint 'whoosh!" and flames rose suddenly in the hearth. Dean and Seamus, nearest the grate, stood up hastily and pulled their chairs back as two men slid from the fire. Several of the Muggles in the room yelped in surprise.

Remus got to his feet quickly, pulling a stocky man up with him. Charlie Weasley was white as a sheet and stared blankly into the air in front of him. Mrs. Weasley rushed over, along with her husband and children, and Charlie was buoyed by them all to the table.

"Charlie?" Mrs. Weasley said, gently.

"Mme Pomfrey has done all she can for now. She thought that being at home would be best for him. He's still not quite right, but with rest…" Remus trailed off.

"Charlie, honey?" Mrs. Weasley. Charlie stared at her as if in shock. Ron suddenly grabbed Harry's arm and he turned to his friend; he looked shocked and terrified.

Ginny had left her stool and was staring at her older brother, willing him silently to be OK. "Charlie?" she asked suddenly, putting her little hand over his big, calloused one. Still he didn't speak. Fleur looked on the verge of tears.

Bill bent over Charlie, taking his other hand. "Let's go upstairs, OK Char?" he said calmly.

Charlie turned to him, and something in him focused for a second. "Bill," he said, vaguely happy, and stood when Bill guided him. Together they walked up the stairs.

There were several moments of silence and then Fleur really did burst into tears, followed quickly by Ginny and Mrs. Weasley. Mr. Weasley wrapped his wife in his embrace and rubbed her back, murmuring, "He'll be OK, he'll be fine."

Remus looked sick. Tonks had risen and hugged him. He clung to her, her face buried in his chest, as if she were the only ship in the ocean. "Hermione," he choked out suddenly.

Hermione, who had also gotten up from her stool to comfort Ginny, looked up at him. Her face was, oddly, full of fear. She stopped patting Ginny and at the same moment Ron gripped Harry's arm even tighter.

"Hermione," he croaked again. "We found your parents."

Hermione's face crumpled and she swayed on the spot. Harry did not understand; he looked around for the Grangers, but they were not in the room.

"It seems that they had expected you to resist long before they attacked," Remus said, he voice still weirdly constricted.

"So the Ministry has them?" Ron asked, horrified, releasing Harry and pulling Hermione into him. She was shaking her head violently and trembling from head to foot.

Tonks looked up and she was crying. "No, Ron. The Ministry, which is basicly too say the Death Eaters, does not think Muggles are worth detaining. They just…get them out of the way…"

Ginny gasped, Hermione collapsed into a stunned Ron's embrace, and Harry understood. Hermione's parents were not locked away with Fred and George, they had been killed. Murdered for having a moral daughter and murdered because they were Muggles.

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Hermione had disappeared into the bedroom that she and Ginny were now sharing with Mafalda and Pansy. Ron, Harry, Ginny and even Draco had tried and failed to help her deal with her grief. When Harry had gone in, she had listened patiently to his assurances that your parents were always part of your life, even after they died, and then she had asked him to leave. Harry had heard her start to sob again as soon as he had closed the door.

In the end it was Pansy, of all people, who got through to her. Harry had listened to their conversation through the door.

"What do you want Pansy?" Hermione had said as the other girl walked in. "All your stuff is still downstairs."

"I wanted to talk to you Gr…Hermione," the Slytherin girl had said with more compassion than Harry had expected her possible of. Apparently as surprised as Harry, Hermione did not answer.

"My uncle was killed by Death Eaters," Pansy had revealed candidly, speaking softly and sadly. "Last year."

Hermione had sniffled. "Why?"

"He was a Squib, and my Aunt Alecto didn't want him to exist anymore," Pansy had said, and Harry had realized she had also started to cry again. She took a deep breath, "So I understand how you feel, at least a bit. It will get better, I promise. There's stuff you can do, to make it hurt less."

"Like what?" Hermione said softly.

"Fight back. Resist Voldemort. Blaise and I have spent all this last year trying to convince the younger Slytherins that Voldemort was not the hero some make him out to be; that he wasn't the only option. It made me feel better to know that I was doing something against him."

There was a long silence. "You say his name," Hermione said at last.

"Yes?" Pansy said, confused.

"Harry says his name," Hermione said simply, and they lapsed back into silence. Harry backed away from the door and headed to Ron's room.

He had taken maybe three steps off the landing when pain whipped across his scar, blinding him and bring him to his knees. The Burrow dissolved around him, his own scream fading and being replaced by the higher, fiercer scream of Lord Voldemort.

He was standing in the ruins of Harry's old house at Godric's Hollow, staring down at the conspicuously empty floor. 'He's got them all,' he thought wildly, panic spreading out through his body like fire. 'The diary was destroyed by Potter years ago, and the snake, killed at my own possessed hand. The cup, the ring, the locket and the mirror are all missing.'

'And yet,' he thought, hope seeping back slowly into him. 'He may not know where the locket is, taken as it was by that Regulus Black and hidden by the filthy, unworthy house-elf.' No, Potter would be unlikely to be able to force the secret from the elf if he himself had failed. Still, he must find that elf and kill him before Potter had the chance.

He turned, his shoe grinding into the rotting floor.

"Harry!" a voice called. The burrow began to reform around him as Harry came back to himself. It was Hermione, Pansy beside her.

"He knows about them all, Hermione," Harry gasped, his head throbbing as he sat up. He knee hurt; he had fallen down the stairs. Pansy waved her wand and a blue ice pack landed in his lap.

"Pansy, would you send Ron and Draco up here?" Hermione asked. Her eyes were still swollen and puffy from crying. Pansy nodded, rose and dashed away down the stairs.

"Harry, what happened?" Ron and Draco appeared minutes later.

He explained to them all quickly. "We have to make sure he doesn't get to Kreacher."

"Well, Kreacher's here, isn't he?" Ron asked. "So he'll be safe as long as we are."

"Are we sure about that?" Harry asked, directing his question at Hermione. "These wards will protect houselves?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione said, biting her lip. "I would think so. I'll go ask Remus before he and Tonks go to Fogbirk's." She headed back down the stairs.

With a cautious glance at Ron, Draco pulled Harry into his arms. A muscle beside Ron's eye jumped quickly, but after a moment all three of them settled into comfortable, pondering silence. Still sitting on the landing, they could hear Hermione talking with Remus in the kitchen below them.

"I reckon it's time to talk to Kreacher again," Ron said after a while.

Harry shifted around in Draco's embrace to look at his friend. Ron was lying out over several stairs, staring at the ceiling. "Are you OK, Ron?" Harry asked.

"Do you think Charlie will get better?" Ron asked, and Harry realized this thought had been haunting him all evening.

"You heard Remus," Harry said, trying to be comforting. "He shouldn't have any lasting damage."

"Yeah…" Ron said vaguely, and they lapsed into another silence. Eventually the stillness was broken by Hermione returning up the stairs.

"Remus said that Kreacher should be protected," she said wearily, "but that you should be careful to not give him any chance to leave, just in case."

"Good," Harry said, and he got to his feet. Gesturing at Hermione's door, flung open in her haste to get to Harry, he said, "We ought to chat with Kreacher again then."

All three of them followed him into the room and arranged themselves on its various chairs and beds. There was palpable tension in the air; the last time they had talked to Kreacher it had not ended well.

"Kreacher," Harry called. The elf appeared, glowering. He did not even bow.

"Kreacher," Harry repeated. "We need to ask you a few questions about the locket, and I order you to stay still and answer me."

Kreacher gave him a look of deep hatred, but he did not move or speak.

"Where is the locket?" Harry tried again.

Kreacher was still for a moment, and then he shook his head jerkily. Suddenly he began smashing himself with both fists over the head. Hermione gasped, "Harry, stop him!"

"What's he doing?" Harry said, surprised and confused.

"You ordered him to answer and he can't so he has to punish himself, but you also ordered him to stay still, so he has to punish himself for moving!"

"Kreacher, stop punishing yourself!" Harry ordered, bemused. He turned to Hermione. "What do I do?"

"Kreacher," said Hermione kindly, "are you forbidden to tell us where the locket is?"

Kreacher looked at Hermione with intense dislike but, still under Harry's order to answer, he nodded. Hermione exhaled loudly.

"Kreacher, did Regulus Black have the locket?" Draco asked. Kreacher nodded again. "Can you tell us how he got it?"

Harry looked up at Draco, surprised. It was an excellent question to have asked and Harry had never even thought to. He beamed at Draco before looking around at Kreacher, who had nodded again and was clearing his throat.

"Master Regulus," Kreacher said, somewhat reluctantly, looking at the floor, "stole it. He stole it from the Dark Lord himself."

The house elf shuddered. After a moment he continued, "When Master was sixteen, still underage, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named recruited him for a mission. He told Master that he needed somebody underage to help him and that Master Regulus would be perfect. Master agreed and went with the Dark Lord. Then he is calling me, Kreacher to him. I came and I was in a cave in the middle of a lake and Master Regulus was being attacked by…He is telling me to bring him back, and I did. He was very sick, Master was, and I had to work very hard to cure him, but he refused wizard help."

Hermione was sitting beside Harry on Ginny's bed, her knuckles stuffed into her mouth and her eyes wide. Ron and Draco wore similar expressions of rapturous disbelief.

"After that Master Regulus was very afraid of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He became a Death Eater out of fear and moved out of the house, away from Kreacher. Then one day he calls me and again I comes. He takes me back to that lake, where there is a stone basin full of liquid," Kreacher paused, and Harry realized the malice had slipped from his voice. He was actually trembling. "M-Master orders Kreacher to feed him the liquid and to not stop even if he is begged to. Kreacher is doing it, but it is horrible. At the bottom of the basin there is a locket, which Kreacher takes. Then he goes to get Master R-Regulus water…" the elf trailed off.

Harry remembered the way that the Inferi had grabbed him, had tried to pull him under. "How did you get out?" he asked.

"I is apparating out with Master Regulus, as I is commanded to do. Then Master Regulus is telling Kreacher to hide the locket until Master can come back and destroy it.

"We want to destroy it, Kreacher, if you could tell us where it is…" Harry said. The elf shook.

Draco gave Harry a reproachful look. "Then what happened, Kreacher?"

"He is going straight away to Master Walker's house –"

Harry gasped. "_Dean_ Walker?" he asked, incredulous.

Kreacher looked up, surprised. "Yes, Dean Walker – Master Regulus' friend from school. He is trying to hide my Master, but the Dark Lord discovered that Regulus was plotting against him and k-killed him."

Harry stared at the elf, shell-shocked. Eventually, Ron asked tentatively, "Harry, who's Dean Walker?"

At just that moment, the door to the bedroom opened. Seamus, Ginny and Dean walked in, the latter catching Ron's question. "Why are you talking about my father?" he asked.

"_Your father?_" Ron and Draco said together, shooting each other unnerved looks.

"Blimely Ron, didn't you know?" Seamus asked. "After all, Harry was the one who found out that Dean's real dad was a wizard."

Harry gave his friends an apologetic look. He had forgotten to tell them in the confusion of Draco kissing him and then seeing Snape's memory. He looked at them sheepishly. "Dean's dad died protecting a fleeing Death Eater from the Dark Lord. He was a real hero."

Hermione nodded, understanding. Ron and Draco still looked flabbergasted.

"So…" Dean prompted a few moments of silence later. "Why were you talking about him?"

"We were just talking to Kreacher," Hermione said, and Harry could almost see her building a story to tell Dean. "He tells us that your father and Regulus Black were friends at school. Regulus Black was a Death Eater."

"A Death Eater that turned good," Harry added when Dean looked troubled, "and he was the younger brother of my godfather, Sirius. We think it may have been him your father was hiding."

There was yet another silence and Harry heard footsteps on the landing.

"I think we should go to bed," said Pansy, appearing suddenly in the door. She eyed Hermione with grave concern and Harry felt his stomach sink. In the excitement of talking to Kreacher he had forgotten about the Grangers.

Apparently Hermione had felt the same. At Pansy's words she clammed up, simply nodding. Harry felt like protesting, wanting to go act on their new information, but one look at Hermione told him they would get nothing more from her. He knew that there was really not need to do anything tonight; they would be safe as long as the wards around the Burrow held. Hugging Hermione goodnight and waving to the other girls, Harry trooped up the tall staircase with the rest of the boys. Dean, his two brothers, Seamus and Blaise were all staying in the twin's old bedroom, as it was the biggest in the house. That left Ron, Harry and Draco to squeeze into Ron's tiny attic bedroom.

Staring up from a mattress on the floor at the Chudley Cannons zooming around the posters the covered the walls, Harry did not mind the close quarters. In such a dangerous time, Harry was glad to have the people he loved most under one roof. Drifting off to sleep, he thought of Hagrid, Remus, Luna and Neville and willed them to be alright. As Ron's snores filled the room, Harry reached out from under his covers and grasped Draco's hand in the dark.


	17. Lost and Found

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Thank you to __**Faerylark**__ (sorry that was so sad, but I really had to), __**Maria**__ (oh no, don't cry! As for Ron, I think he's most concerned about Harry and Ginny), __**Pareidolia**__ (cool new name! and I don't think it is weird to feel sad for anybody__) and __**Fred kissed George**__ (poor Grangers!) for their reviews!_

_Thank you as well to Tarkemelhion and White Merlin for making especially good points. _

DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T READ DEATHLY HALLOWS, it may give you clues you don't want:

_**Tarkemelhion,**__ I'm sorry it was so similar! That is exactly how I imagined it happening (imagine my minor outburst of "I knew it! I told you!"s while reading DH) and I couldn't think of another way to write it and still have the previous chapters (ex. Dean's dad's mention as "hiding a Death Eater" in chapter 6) as well as the future ones that I have all planned work out. I think that is the only major plotline that I had planned that manifested itself in Deathly Hallows though, so hopefully it doesn't happen again. :0) _

YOU MAY, HOWEVER, READ THIS:

_**White Merlin,**__ the Unholy Grails? They aren't as exciting as you may think…sorry. "Grails" are traditionally objects that are both historically significant and long sought after. They are often the subject of a quest and in some instances they have been described as vessels of the souls of saints. Of course, "Unholy Grails" wouldn't be the vessels for saints, but something or somebody that personifies the opposite: evil. Kind of exactly how I see the Horcruxes? Less than imaginative, I admit. The title actually came from an inside joke with a friend and by the time I had the whole fiction planned I became unable to think of it as anything else. _

_Holy Over-Long Preambles Batman! This one is for all of my wonderful reviewers, thank you all!_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Lost and Found**

Two boys with identical tufts of red hair sat side-by-side chained to the ground about halfway up the stone levels of a giant amphitheatre-like room. On of them sported a black eye, the other had blood still falling from a cut above his ear. Both boys were straining their eyes and peering into the semi-darkness of the vast room, looking for something.

"I don't see them, do you?" the boy with the bruise asked his twin very quietly.

"No," his twin said slowly. "Do you reckon they could be in another room?"

"I suppose," the first twin admitted.

"Fred Weasley? George?" a voice hissed suddenly from the level above them. Both boys turned in their seats.

"Yes?" Fred hissed back, turning around as much as his bonds would permit.

"It is you!" the voice exclaimed and then a man in blue and golden Quidditch robes leaned eagerly towards them.

"Oliver!" George exclaimed, squinting through his swelling eye. "Oliver Wood?"

"What are you doing here?" Fred whispered.

"They came during the new members tryouts and tried to arrest Angelina Johnson. You remember her? She was trying out for the team when these Ministry wizards came up and said that she was being arrested for 'past involvement in an anti-Ministry organization.'"

"Remember her?" George chuckled. "Fred went to the Ball with her seventh year!"

"Is she OK?" Fred asked.

"Well she got taken in, but not until I'd told the guy to bugger off and punched his partner in the chest."

"Oliver!" Fred exclaimed, but he was laughing.

Yea well, I guess that's the Gryffindor in me," Oliver said sheepishly. "Anyway, to what you were saying before, there isn't another room. They're keeping us all here for now. Who are you looking for?"

"Our family," George whispered. "They aren't here."

"They might have gotten hidden in time," Oliver suggested hopefully. "My mother isn't here either; I'll bet she's hiding at her Muggle sister's house."

Both Fred and George were about to reply when Oliver threw himself backwards again, staring at the ceiling. They looked around to find one of the several Ministry officials patrolling the room heading their way.

The hooded man came to a stop at the woman two down from George, who was sobbing. "Shut up!" he growled, his voice deep and gravely.

The woman tried to stop, but fear seemed to only make her cry harder. Suddenly the hooded man kicked out, striking the woman in the chest. Her sobs ceased instantly.

"Oi!" Fred said, incensed. "What the ruddy hell is wrong with you?"

The hood man walked over to Fred, chuckling. "Want some of the same treatment, then?"

"Oh _yes_," Fred said sarcastically, "but then again who wouldn't?"

"Nothing like a little late-night torture to really set your nerves on end before you try to sleep," George added.

There was a brilliant flash of light and both twins buckled over, winded. The hooded man laughed again and the heads of most people nearby turned upwards to look at what was going on. "Think you are funny, do you?" he snarled. "Think you are clever?"

"Yeah, kind of," Fred retorted, and several of the people around them laughed, recognizing the twins from their joke shop. "George is rather brilliant at telling jokes actually."

"Oh Fred, don't flatter me," George said modestly. "Though actually, have you heard the one about the arrogant Lord who was defeated by an infant? Because if that doesn't get you chuckling, nothing wi –"

The hooded man howled in disgust as the people around him roared with laughter. He raised his wand again, but just as he did there was the sound of approaching footsteps and he turned to see who was coming. Another hooded, taller man was hurrying up the row.

"Mockridge, the Minister wishes to speak with you," the man called.

"Can't it wait just a moment?" Mockridge asked. "I was about to teach these traitors a message."

"It can't wait," the other man insisted. Light glinted off of the second man's glasses as Mockrigdge raised his wand and slashed down once more, causing both Weasley twins to break out in violent hives. Still disgusted, Mockridge stalked off.

Once he had left, the tall man leant down so that only Fred and George could hear. "You should be careful of who you insult; Mockridge has a dangerous temper."

"Yeah, well," Fred began, ready to retort, but the Ministry wizard silenced him with a finger against his lips.

"Finite Incantatum," the wizard whispered, and the twins' hives disappeared. The man straightened up. "Here are your rations for the day," he said loudly, handing both boys a lump of bread and cheese.

"We've already had…" Fred began, but the man had walked away.

"What was that about?" George asked.

"No idea."

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

The next day started with Harry waking to the banging of the ghoul in the attic and the feeling of Draco's hand slipping out of his. He sat up to face his boyfriend. The Slytherin was sitting in his sleeping bag, he hair tousled and his eyes a bit puffy from sleep. Harry leaned over and kissed his mouth gently.

"Good morning," he said.

"Morning," Draco replied dozily. Scooting over closer to Harry, the blond pulled Harry into a deep kiss. After a few seconds, Harry broke it, shooting a furtive glance at the still-snoring Ron and then pushing Draco back down onto the mattress on the floor. Draco grinned, wrapping his hands around Harry's neck and burying his fingers in the unruly ebony hair.

Running his hands up Draco's bare chest slowly, Harry slipped his tongue lazily into the blonde's mouth, running its tip over the roof of his mouth. Draco shuddered pleasurably and slid his hands down Harry's back, slipping his fingertips under Harry's waistband.

Abandoning Draco's mouth, Harry attacked the smooth flesh just under his boyfriend's ear, making the other boy moan. Nibbling on Draco's earlobe a couple of times, Harry moved down his neck to the exposed skin at the base of his throat, his hands tugging the blonde's head back gently by his hair.

"ARG!" there was a loud cry from nearby. "Jesus Harry, not this early in the morning!"

Harry snickered into Draco's neck and then raised himself up, putting on his glasses. Draco rolled out from under him and their legs, wrapped in their tangled sleeping bags, collided, throwing Harry onto his back on the mattress. Both he and Draco laughed giddily.

Ron gave them a highly annoyed look, clearly disgusted that they were so perky so early. Harry grinned up at him backwards. "Well Ron, you _were_ sleeping."

"Wonderful," Ron said sarcastically, heading out the door. "Great to know what you guys are up to feet away when I close my eyes."

Still chuckling, Harry and Draco pulled on their clothes and headed down to breakfast. On the landing below they were joined by Dean, his brothers and Seamus, all of whom seemed to be in rather high spirits. Mafalda burst from the girls' room on the first landing with such violent exuberance that she collided with Draco. Harry's heart jumped into his throat as Draco caught the young girl, swinging her in a circle and setting her down laughing hysterically.

Bill opened the door on the other side of the landing, bleary eyed and exhausted. "Guys, if you could keep it down?" he asked softly as Mafalda and the boys thundered down the stairs.

"Why Bill, 'ees Fleur steel sleeping?" Seamus asked, grinning.

Bill smiled sadly. "No, Charlie is."

Immediately the smiles fell from their faces. Sobered, all four boys headed into the kitchen. There they found Blaise and Pansy helping Mrs. Weasley set the table, where Ginny, Ron and Hermione sat. It was very silent. Though none of them wanted to look too concerned, every person in the kitchen kept sending Hermione worried looks. When she began to pull apart the placemat Ginny set in front of her thread-by-thread nobody even commented, though Harry knew the Weasley's could not really afford Hermione destroying their dinner sets.

Breakfast tried its hardest to be a cheerful event, with Seamus and Dean carrying most of the conversation. The only truly happy people there were the younger children, who neither knew nor understood what had happened to Hermione or Charlie. Oblivious, they cantered around the house playing a mixture of Muggle and wizards games. Logan was a year older than Mafalda and wondered at each magical thing he saw. Mathias, barely eight, seemed to easily accept that it was normal here for the dishes to wash themselves and for people to slide out of the fireplace.

Harry, Ron and Draco attempted to have a conversation about the locket and where it might be, but Hermione's presence squeezed into the chair with Ron, his arms around her, seemed to dampen their minds.

"But where could it be?" Ron asked for the twelfth time, running his hands over Hermione's back.

"Well," Draco said. "We've decided that it has to be a place Kreacher would have gone, but also somewhere well hidden."

"It probably isn't at number twelve," Ron added. "I mean, I think we'd have seen it."

Harry gasped suddenly, remembering something. "We did see it! There was a locket in the drawing room, in that cabinet, remember? We…"

"…threw it out." Ron concluded in horror. Even Hermione had looked up, diverted from her misery.

"You did _what_?" Draco said, disbelieving.

"Harry," Hermione said softly, wiping her eyes. "Kreacher might have stolen it back. You should ask. I think he would have been acting more upset if it had been stolen."

"Kreacher," Harry called. At once, the elf appeared.

"Master calls?" Kreacher bowed, startling them all.

"Um, yeah," Harry said. "We were wondering. There was a locket in the drawing room that we threw out. What that the locket? Did you steal it back?"

The elf considered him for a moment, apparently considering whether he could answer them. Finally he did. "Yes," he said, "that was the locket Master Regulus entrusted to me, and yes I is stealing it back."

Harry sagged, relaxing back into the chair again. "Thank you Kreacher, you may go back to whatever you were doing."

"As you wish," Kreacher replied, bowing again and disappearing.

"Well, I guess it's good to know that it isn't in some garbage dump somewhere," Harry mused.

"It doesn't help much though," Hermione said, resting her head back on Ron's chest. "We are still looking for a place that Kreacher would have hidden it, though you are probably right Ron, I doubt its at Grimmauld Place. The Death Eaters living there woul have found it by now."

There was a knock on the door and little Mathias burst in. "Mafalda?" he asked, then blushed as all four of them looked at him. "Sorry. Have you seen Mafalda? She was going to show me broom-flying!"

Ron smiled at the boy. "No, we haven't seen her, but I think I know somebody else who could show you. Harry here is the best flyer in our year at school."

Draco snorted, earning him a sarcastic look from Ron. Mathias looked thrilled. "Really? Would you show me, Mr. Harry?"

Harry grinned despite himself. "Are we done here for now then?" he asked his friends. There was a general murmur of assent. "I don't see why not then Mathias. You have to go ask Mr. Weasley if it safe first, though."

"OK!" the little boy practically flew from the room and down the stairs in search of Mr. Weasley.

Ten minutes later, Harry found himself on his broom, swishing around the yard about two feet off the ground. The broom would, of course, not fly without a wizard aboard, so Harry was sitting with Mathias in front of him, one hand on the broom handle and the other curled into the little boy's shirt back to keep him on the broom. Mr. Weasley had decided that it was safe for them to fly as long as they stay close to the ground and inside the yard. Going too high or over the fence would have put them outside the protective boundaries.

Being only sixty centimeters from the ground did not seem to matter to Mathias, however. He was making race car noises as they sped over the grass, laughing gleefully every time the so much as turned. Draco was leaning against the back of the house, grinning. When Dean's other brother, Logan, noticed what his brother was doing and immediately demanded a turn, Draco offered him one.

Mounting another of the Weasley's old brooms, Draco rose to about three feet from the ground. Logan looked down at Harry and Mathias and gleefully pointed out that they were higher.

"Go up!" Mathias urged, pulling the broom handle upwards with all his might, and to Harry's surprise the broom shot to the sky. Barely managing to grip both boy and broom, Harry turned the handle hastily towards ground again, forcing them upside-down. They plummeted, and at the very last possible second Harry rolled the broom over, touching his feet to the ground. Mathias shouted with excitement, "Please do it again, Harry!"

Harry, a bit shaken, smiled down at him. "No, I think that's enough for now," he said, lifting the boy from his broom and setting him on the ground.

"Ah Harry, there you are," Mrs. Weasley said, coming out of the house. "Have you seen Mafalda?"

"She said she was going to pick flowers," Logan said, swinging himself off Draco's broom as they too touched down.

Mrs. Weasley blanched. "You don't think…? ARTHUR!"

Mr. Weasley came running out of the house. "What is it?"

"Mafalda is gone. Logan said she went to pick flowers."

"You think she went outside the wards?" Mr. Weasley said, and without another word he swept to the back gate, opened it and began running up the bush path behind the house.

Mrs. Weasley sent Dean's brothers inside to wash their hands for lunch, and then the three of them sat and waited. After several tense minutes, Mr. Weasley reappeared with Mafalda.

"Oh thank goodness," Mrs. Weasley, pulling the girl into her arms. "You are okay."

The little girl looked up at her aunt, confused. "I was only gone for a few minutes, Auntie Molly."

Mr. Weasley knelt down in front of niece, placing a hand on each of her shoulders. "Be that as it may, Mafalda, you must promise me never to leave the yard again. It is dangerous out there. Who knows what could have happened to you."

HDHDHDDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Six more days went by at the Burrow almost uneventfully. The various wards and charms placed on the house seemed to be holding nicely. Mr. Weasley, Secret Keeper for the Burrow, kept constant check on the protection around the house. Each time any member of the Order arrived with news they were bombarded with security question s to be sure that they were who they seemed to be.

Meanwhile, the continued absence of Fred, George and Pansy's parents weighed on everyone. Charlie's continued detachment frequently sent Mrs. Weasley into tears. Ginny dealt by getting easily frustrated and so she was little comfort to Hermione, who was grieving for her parents. She and Ron hardly ever left Ginny's room, choosing instead to lie for hours in each other's arms and commiserate. By the sixth day, everyone was feeling the strain of the confined quarters.

Harry did not think he could have stayed sane without Draco, who was constantly supportive and positive. Together they were left with the task of locating the last Horcrux with Hermione or Ron. They had several further talks with Kreacher and, while unhelpful in providing anything else useful about the locket, these conversations seemed to slowly lessen Kreacher's hatred of them. When Harry had finally impressed on him that both they and Regulus had been after the same thing, Kreacher had become much friendlier. He seemed almost as eager as they were to destroy the locket after all these years, but he was forbidden from helping them find it.

The sixth day dawned the very same as the rest of them and it was not until noon that anything out of the ordinary occurred at the Burrow. Just as they were finishing lunch (Bill had set up several tables in the back garden), there came a faint call from the front. It sounded to Harry as if the voice was coming from underwater.

"Mum! Mum!" it was calling. Molly Weasley gasped, jumping to her feet. "Fred and George!" she exclaimed, rushing around the house. She was followed a half second later by the rest of the Weasley's and Harry.

"Molly, wait!" Mr. Weasley implored, but he was too late. Mrs. Weasley had hurtled over the invisible line of protection around the house and flung her arms around the boys running up the drive towards her. She had been right; it was Fred, followed by his brother George.

"Fred! Fred! Oh Fred!" Mrs. Weasley sobbed into her son's shoulder. "And George, you're safe too, thank heavens!" She grasped their hands and brought them towards the house.

As soon as they had crossed the boundary, Harry had his wand at George's chest. "Harry!" Hermione cried, shocked.

"Where did you find the Marauder's Map?" he demanded.

"I, um, Filch's office," George stammered, bewildered. He left eye had been blacked. "In the _Confiscated and Highly Dangerous_ drawer."

Harry turned to Fred, who sported many cuts on his arms and neck. "What did I tell you I'd do if you didn't take my Triwizard earnings?"

"Throw it down the drain, wasn't it?" he said after a second's consideration. "That and hex us."

Harry lowered his wand and allowed himself to smile. "Sorry, I had to check."

"Yeah, quite the welcome party you are there Harry," George said sarcasticly, but grinned as Ginny threw her arms around him. There were hugs exchanged around, but Fred and George seemed oddly tense. Twice Harry caught George glancing over his shoulder at the end of the lane.

"So how did you get out?" Ron asked curiously. "Decoy detonators?"

"Not exactly," George said, and there was definite trepidation in his voice now.

"We had help," Fred supplied. Mr. Weasley gasped, and Harry followed her gaze over the twin's shoulders and to the end of the lane. There, framed by the trees and looking very thin and pale against the dark earth path, stood Percy.

Several long moments of stunned silence followed, broken by Ron's exclamation of "_Percy_? _Percy_ helped you?"

"More than helped," Fred said matter-of-factly. "When he found out who they were holding in out cell he stole Polyjuice Potion, brought down six Ministry Wizards, broke apart a magical prison cell door and smuggled us out as Magical Maintenance through the Floo network."

Mrs. Weasley let out another wail and flew down the lane again to her third eldest son. She threw her arms around him as well, almost dragging him up the driveway and into the Burrow. The ex-Head Boy looked very troubled. This time it was Ron that was ready with his wand.

"Percy, what did you tell me in your letter to me in fifth year?"

Percy flushed. "I told you to stop hanging out with Harry, to get close to Umbridge, and called the Order "petty criminals", if I remember correctly."

Ron lowered his wand, staring fiercely at his brother. "You also told me that Harry was unbalanced. You shouldn't insult my friends, Perce."

"Ron, I'm sorry," Percy begged, appealingly. He addressed Mr. Weasley most when he repeated, "So very sorry. I was out of line and wrong. I was the worst kind of traitor to you all."

"And you saved Fred and George's lives, no doubts about it," Bill said, speaking for the first time. The eldest Weasley, the only one present still taller than Percy, held out his hand. The tension in the air seemed to drop as, still pink and urgent looking, Percy took it gratefully.

"Mum, Dad," he said, turning to his parents. "They're coming. They know about all the safe houses. We heard them talking about attacking here. They said something about a creature here that they wanted?"

Hermione, Harry, Ron and Draco all gasped, drawing Percy's attention to the latter. He stared at Draco incredulously for a second, but apparently decided he had more important things to worry about. "They will attack as soon as they can get inside the wards."

"How can they know he's here?" Hermione hissed to Harry. Harry opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off by a piercing scream from the back garden.

"MAFALDA!"

It was Dean's brother. Harry followed the Weasley's as they sprinted back around the house. The remaining guests who had been eating lunch were now clustered around a small figure that lay writhing on the ground. Ginny pushed Pansy out of her way and fell to her knees beside her cousin. Harry wormed his way into the circle, staring down at the figure on the ground.

Mafalda Weasley was rolling on the grass in apparent agony. Her hands flailed in the air and her feet kicked. Several times she tried to get up, but Ginny held her against the grass. Mrs. Weasley sobbed uncontrollably beside her.

Just as Harry had decided that the girl had been poisoned and was desperately thinking where he might find an antidote in the Burrow, something happened that shocked them all. Mafalda's skin began to stretch and balloon as if she was putting on weight very quickly. Her hair shrank rapidly and with each kick her legs seemed to lengthen. Harry realized with complete and utter horror what had happened.

"Get back!" he shouted at everyone around him. He tugged Mrs. Weasley to her feet, pushing her backwards against her husband. He seized Ginny by the back of her jumper, but she refused to budge.

"No, she's my cousin!" Ginny swatted at Harry's hands.

"That isn't your cousin, Ginny!" Hermione shouted suddenly, her face mirroring Harry's fear and disbelief. Momentarily stunned, Ginny stopped fighting and Harry was able to pull her to her feet and push her backward. A collective gasp went up around the circle and Harry's eyes snapped back to the ground.

Lying between them all where Mafalda had lain only moments before was a tall and thin man with dirty brown hair that was balding on his crown. Antonin Dolohov sneered at them and made to rise, but Draco was faster.

"Incarcerous!" he commanded, and ropes shot from his wand and bound themselves around the Death Eater. He turned to Harry, his face white. "Polyjuice Potion," he murmured, stunned.

Ron gasped, "No!" He whipped out his own wand, pointing it at Dolohov's face. "What have you done with my cousin?" he snarled.

Dolohov laughed humorlessly. "That little whimp?" he sneered. "She was of no use to me except for her hair. I sent her to the Ministry."

George blanched, "We never saw her there."

Ron's wand made a slashing motion and blood began to pour grotesquely from Dolohov's nose, ears, eyes and mouth. He screamed in pain. Ron's hand dropped and he spun to catch his mother, who had collapsed. Mrs. Weasley began to cry in earnest into Ron's shirt and Harry turned away as Ginny began to cry silently into her mother's hair.

The rest of the party looked stunned. After a moment, Seamus and his family began to attempt to comfort the Weasleys and steer them inside. Hermione and Fleur had broken once again into stunned tears. Harry and Draco were very white.

Arthur Weasley looked as if he had just been clubbed over the head. "I let her in," he muttered, shocked. He looked up, almost defensively. "We were all so happy to see her OK that I just led her home, invited her back in."

Harry understood. Mr. Weasley was Secret Keeper for the Burrow, so by inviting the disguised Dolohov in he had let him breach the protective wards. He would have been able to pass information to Voldemort about the Burrow, as well as…"

"The other safe houses!" Harry exclaimed. "He would have told Voldemort about them! We have to warn them!"

"He's right," Mr. Weasley said. As one, he, Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Fred, George and Fleur all raised their wands. All at once six silver patronuses shot off across the grass and away.

"We have to get everyone out," Mrs. Weasley said.

Bill had the answer on the edge of his tongue. "We'll go to Gringotts, I have friends amongst the goblins there. They'll protect us."

"_Goblins_, Bill?" Fred said incredulously. "We are at war with them!"

"Not the ones at Gringotts," Bill replied, irritated. "How would people get to their gold? The ones still at Gringotts are the ones friendly to –"

"The Ministry," Percy finished.

"Not all of them! I have friends there, they'll protect us! Trust me," he appealed to them all.

Mr. Weasley looked ready to argue, but there was no time for it. Just as he opened his mouth there was a resounding CRACK a thousand times louder than apparition and Harry thought surely the world had split in two. Suddenly there were figures in the air around them, firing hexes and jinxes from every direction.

"INSIDE!" bellowed Mr. Weasley, pulling Harry by his shirt in through the kitchen door. As soon as everyone was inside he slammed the door shut and there was a resounding BANG as no less than ten curses hammered the spot where they had stood seconds before.


	18. Traitors Redeemed

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Thank you to __**Faerylark**__ (security is tricky against Voldemort!), __**Pareidolia**__ (your worrying is not far off, you'll see…), __**White**__**Merlin**__ (haha, I'm glad you do), __**Tarkmelhion**__ (you are important!), __**SaphirePheonix**__ (I wish I could be "as bad" as JK! As for Kingsley, I knew that was there, but I didn't want people to think a new chapter was up so I just left it. Well spotted though! And Kingsley really is dead, sorry…), __**Maria**__ (of course, what's a story without the twins?) and __**Maisy**__ (I'm glad!) for their encouraging reviews!_

_Small warning: steel your nerves, people are going to start dying soon. Don't worry though, I'm not just going to drop the wall….I mean ball….on you suddenly and for no reason; only the people I absolutely must kill will die. Sorry! Don't hate me!_

_This is for all my reviewers!_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Traitors Redeemed**

Mad-Eye Moody was not exactly the type of man that you would expect to keep a garden. It was therefore very surprising for Neville Longbottom to find a large greenhouse tacked onto the back of the Auror's heavily guarded house. True, the garden was rather neglected. Neville got the impression that the plants were not really cared for but rather left to their own devices.

Since arriving nearly a week previously, Neville had spent most of his time in the greenhouse. His love of plants, coupled with his desire to escape the half dozen younger Ravenclaws (and their families) and his potential usefulness to Madame Pomfrey, had driven him to wake up early and retreat to the garden before anyone had woken and not return until after most had gone to bed. He was working on two plants in particular, the pubescent Mandrakes and the plot of Bubotubers, both of which had magical healing powers.

In the first few days, the Ravenclaws had tried to assist him, impressed upon by Mme Pomfrey how essential the healing draughts Neville was procuring would be to helping the injured and cursed victims of the new Ministry regime. Neville had tried very hard to accommodate them in the greenhouse, but the fourth time that Sarah Fawcett had accidentally provoked the honking daffodils and set the entire patch off he had finally reached the end of his rope. Instead, he convinced them that their efforts would be much better put towards learning how to brew the potions once the plants were ready.

As a result, Neville was left in peace most of the day. Even Luna, his girlfriend, was leaving him alone. As much as he liked her, Neville was intensely grateful for this. Alone he did not have to worry about whether he was paying Luna enough attention or have to listen to her explain to him in detail why the Screechsnap was really Glibblegrass, a mythical herb from Swaziland. This was why when he was interrupted in his attempt to milk a bubotuber pod on Thursday morning, he was so surprised.

"Neville?" a tentative voice called from the door. It was Francine Bobbins, a fifth year Ravenclaw. Neville was particularly fond of Francine, because she had the same mix of obvious intelligence and eccentricity Neville found so refreshing in Luna.

"Yeah?" he said, lifting the heavy goggles he was wearing and waving a pus-covered glove.

"Mme Pomfrey needs you, and she says to bring as much bubotuber pus as you can. She's in Professor Slughorn's room."

"Thanks, Francie," Neville said, stripping off the gloves carefully and putting on a clean pair. Quickly passing the Ravenclaws, who were making lunch in the kitchen, he went upstairs with the pus.

Professor Slughorn looked no better than when Neville had last seen him two days ago. He had been attacked by a suit of armor that had been bewitched. He had survived, but was left with numerous sword slashes and bruises that could not be cured. The wounds, Mme Pomfrey had explained, were cause indirectly by Dark Magic, and so no normal healing spell would cure them. Instead, Mme Pomfrey had been holding the bleeding at bay with Tentacula compresses. Right now, Professor Slughorn was sleeping.

Neille set down his bowl of corrosive pus on the table at the foot of Slughorn's bed. Mme Pomfrey looked up from examining something on the Professor's torso. "Ah, Neville. You've brought the pus? Excellent."

"Yes," Neville said, confused. "I'm sorry Madame Pomfrey, but what do we need bobotuber pus for? It cures acne."

"I believe I've asked you to call me Poppy," Mme Pomfrey implored. "Bubotuber pus is a powerful anti-inflammatory, thus it's effectiveness on pimples. Professor Slughorn has developed an infection in one of his wounds and, while I have nothing to treat it, I am hoping to reduce its spread using bubotuber pus. Mrs. Lovegood has offered me her assistance, but I would appreciate if you would begin diluting the pus immediately as you are best at handling it."

Neville looked around and noticed for the first time that Luna was sitting on the twin bed opposite Slughorn's, immersed in a book entitled "_Unusual Plants and Animals and their uses in Magical Medicine_". At the sound of her name, she looked up.

"Oh hello Neville," she said serenely, putting her book down and slipping off the bed. Dreamily, she slipped her arms around his waist and placed a gentle kiss on his lips. Neville's stomach jumped into his throat and he kissed her back, his hands held in the air to avoid touching her with his pus-contaminated gloves. Mme Pomfrey cleared her throat quietly, and Neville stepped back, red to his hairline. Luna smiled at him vaguely, murmuring, "Aren't you cute?"

As Mme Pomfrey lifted his bed linens again, Professor Slughorn began to stir. Neville began to dilute the pus as, moaning and twitching his great mustache irritably, Slughorn cracked one eye open and grumbled, "Poppy, can't you leave those alone? How is a fellow to sleep?"

"I'm afraid not, Horace," Mme Pomfrey said briskly, pulling the covers down to Slughorn's waist. His rotund chest was laid bare, multiple plant compress-covered gashes crossing it and making the Professor look a bit like a demented herb garden. "We are going to have to treat some of your wounds with dilute bobotuber pus to stop infection."

Slughorn groaned. "Will it hurt?"

"I expect it will sting a bit, yes," Mme Pomfrey said, only mildly sympathetic. Neville finished diluting the pus to a safe level, and the matron conjured herself gloves from midair and began to dawb the solution onto Slughorn's wounds. He yowled in pain.

"Oh honestly, Horace!" Mme Pomfrey said sternly. "A little stinging is nothing to complain about. Be happy your injuries have a treatment, unlike Charlie Weasley!"

This quieted Slughorn and, aside from a few involuntary starts or yelps, he remained quite and compliant for the rest of his treatment. Once she was done, Mme Pomfrey allowed Neville to return to the greenhouse. Luna elected to go with him to check on her plot of Swamp Quixneys, which were really just daisies.

Downstairs in the kitchen they ran into Mad-Eye Moody. A week cooped up in his house with a bunch of children had not done anything for his temper. As Neville and Luna stepped off the stairs he was yelling at a retreating back, "And don't let me catch you doing that ever again!"

"H-hello Professor," Neville said, edging toward the kitchen door that led to garden. Moody turned to him, glowering darkly.

"I was never a Professor, was I, boy?" he grumbled, seizing one of the sandwiches prepared by the Ravenclaws and biting into it with a vigor most reserved for the squashing of the most unpleasant bugs.

There was a whooshing noise and something silver streaked past Neville to land at Moody's feet. He roared, dropping the half-destroyed sandwich and drawing his wand, but there was no enemy to attack. At his feet, bouncing jovially up on its hind legs, was a silver fox patronus. Then it spoke with the surprisingly serious voice of one of the Weasley twins.

"_To Mad-Eye Moody. Burrow infiltrated, expecting attack imminently. Likely that the other safe houses are also compromised. Get to somewhere safe." _

Seconds later, before they could so much as open their mouths, there was a deafening CRACK that sounded to Neville like the felling of a tree. Several of the Ravenclaws screamed and one of their younger siblings burst into noisy tears.

"Portus!" Moody yelled over the din, for there was now a sound very much like drums as the wards around them were battered. The table between Neville and Moody glowed blue for an instant. "You and you," Moody commanded, pointing at Francine and her friend Lira, "go upstairs and help Madame Pomfrey get Professor Slughorn down here! All the rest of you get a bit of yourself onto this table!"

"The Mandrakes!" Neville said, panicked.

"It's too late for that!" Moody bellowed, but Neville crashed through the kitchen door anyway. Grabbing the nearest pot, he turned back to the house. His way was blocked by Luna, who held out her arms. He piled three Mandrakes into them, grabbed two himself, and herded her back into the house just as there was a great shattering of glass and the greenhouse roof broke under the stress of several curses.

"Longbottom, get your butt to this table unless you want to be fertilizer at Malfoy Manor this time tomorrow!" Moody hollered at Neville. Francine lifted one of the Mandrakes from his grasp and he was able to slap his palm onto the table just as it glowed again, and then he was jerked into nothingness.

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Harry's forehead suddenly burned as if someone were holding his face into a fire. With a swooping feeling of dread, Harry realized that Voldemort himself must be nearby.

"Mr. Weasley, it's him, he's here," Harry told the older wizard urgently.

"Mr. Weasley paled even further. "You are sure, Harry?"

"Yes, you have to get everyone out. Get to Gringotts, or somewhere else safe! I should be able to distract them for a short while," Harry said.

"We'll help," Ron said, appearing at Harry's side. Draco, Hermione and Ginny, her face still streaked with tears but full of furious rage, stood behind him. There was another loud bang from outside and Harry saw the hen coop blow to pieces out the kitchen window.

Mr. Weasley turned to the room. "Ok, listen up everyone! Bill? Go to Gringotts and find us a safe place to Portkey to, now!" The eldest Weasley son dashed out the front door. Harry watched as he dodged curse after curse, finally Disaparating just outside the boundary of the yard.

"Dean, Seamus, get everyone together in the middle of the room! Fred and George, go get Charlie! Molly, Percy, Fleur, Blaise, Pansy and you lot," Mr. Weasley swept his hand over the group around Harry, "try and buy Bill some time!"

They did as they were told. As the window above the loveseat shattered, Harry and Draco ran forward and began to shoot hexes out of it. One of Harry's Stunning jinxes hit a Death Eater on a broom and they fell some twenty feet, landing crumpled beside the still-tied Dolohov, who they had left in the yard. More windows were blown out in the kitchen, and Hermione, the Slytherins and the remaining Weasleys rushed away to defend them. With every curse, the walls of the Burrow shook. Harry had never thought he would be happy to be staying in a converted pigsty, but he was very grateful now. The think stone walls of the lower levels of the house withstood the many Reductor curses almost as well as the walls of Hogwarts, and Harry suspected that Mr. Weasley had magically reinforced them.

"I still don't understand!" Hermione bellowed. "I thought that only the Secret Keeper could reveal the location of a safe house!"

"Voldemort probably used Legilimency on Dolohov and discovered where he had been by force!" Mr. Weasley answered.

"Why didn't he just do that on Snape last year?" Harry asked, confused. "He could have found out about Grimmauld Place!"

"Snape convinced Voldemort that Dumbledore had further protected his mind to hide the location of Headquarters and then employed Occlumency!" Mr. Weasley supplied. "A fact that Dumbledore often used as proof of Snape's trustworthiness!"

All at once the curses ceased. There was a few seconds silence and then twenty voices bellowed, "REDUCTO!" just as Harry heard Fred, George and Charlie fall to the foot of the stairs. The entire top floors of the house were blasted clean off, began to topple over and disintegrate into a pile of dust and nails. Mrs. Weasley began to weep.

"Oi, Charlie, stay still!" Harry heard Fred yell over the din. He turned. Charlie was fighting tooth and nail to get away from his brothers, who he did not seem to recognize. He kept trying to make for the door and it was only by Percy's quick grabbing around his waist that he did not succeed.

"It's no use!" George cried, anguish plain in his voice. "Stupefy!"

Charlie fell to the ground with a thump. Hermione screamed as the roof of the first floor suddenly began to peel off, falling with the rest of the house. In seconds they were exposed to the sky. Several Death Eaters on brooms raised their wands, shooting curses at them. Harry ducked.

There was another resounding CRACK and the nearest Death Eater fell from their broom and to the ground. Kreacher had appeared in front of Harry. "Destroy the locket, Harry Potter," he growled, throwing his arms wide to protect Harry's crouching figure.

"No!" Harry exclaimed, but it was too late. A green jet of light hit Kreacher in the chest, knocking him backward onto Harry. Lifting him of his body, Harry knew the elf was dead. Suddenly his scar flared with pain again.

"IMBECILE!" a high voice screamed, and with a loud pop Lord Voldemort himself appeared in the yard. "_I told you not to kill the house-elf!_" Everyone in the house screamed, Draco clutching his left arm, as Voldemort flicked his wand at the Death Eater that had killed Kreacher. The man went limp, fell from his broom and landed spread eagled on the ground, also dead. As he landed, his hood slipped back and Harry recognized him as the blonde Death Eater from last June. Voldemort emanated fury as he turned on the house.

"Potter!" he screeched, arms spread wide. "Stop hiding and come and face me as you are meant to!"

Nobody moved. Even the remaining Death Eaters stopped fighting, waiting on their Lord's command. All eyes turned to Harry, who slowly straightened up.

"No, Harry," Draco begged, but Harry ignored him. He walked across the living room, opening the front door and stepping through. He did not stop walking until he had a clear shot at Voldemort if he had to attack.

"You wanted me?" Harry said, trying to sound braver than he felt.

"Yes Potter. I think it is finally time for us to fight," Voldemort said, apparently at ease.

"Oh yeah, why's that?" Harry asked, stalling for time. He could not defeat Voldemort now, without having destroyed the locket. He could only hope Bill returned quickly.

Apparently Voldemort had realized this. "Well, you see," he began, toying with his wand. "I am confident that I am still immortal, though I know you seek to undo that. I have destroyed your last protector, Albus Dumbledore, and now I feel would been a prudent time to stop you before you destroy anymore of my…most precious…belongings."

"You didn't destroy Professor Dumbledore!" Harry yelled, anger bubbling up in him. "You didn't have the nerve! You sent one of your minions to do it for you!"

"Regardless," Voldemort said, his voice still deadly calm. "You have lost your last line of defense; it is you and I alone fighting now."

"That is not entirely true," a sneering voice cut across the grass. There was a flurry of motion to his left and suddenly Severus Snape was at his side, staring at the Dark Lord. Hermione gasped from within the house.

"You!" Harry exclaimed, raising his wand to curse Snape.

"I really would not do that if I were in your shoes, Potter," Snape said harshly, eyes still fixed on Voldemort.

"What is this, Severus?" Voldemort asked, annoyance creeping into his voice. "Move so that I may finish the boy."

"I'm afraid I cannot do that," Snape said, matching Voldemort's clam.

"Cannot do….?" Voldemort seemed utterly unable to comprehend why his most trusted servant would be disturbing his plans.

"Cannot do that," Snape agreed. There was a very tense pause.

"You defy me?" Voldemort hissed, his rage barely concealed.

Snape said nothing, instead staring down Voldemort with his beetle eyes.

"Very well," Voldemort said eventually, regaining his forced calm. "But before I kill you, I am curious. Why betray me for this boy, Severus?"

"Believe me My Lord," Snape sneered. "I have no love for Potter. I am not doing this for him."

"If not for Potter, then for whom, Snape?"

"My mother," Snape said simply. Harry looked around at him, incredulous.

"Your mother?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"Oh yes, Potter," Snape did not look at him, "for my mother. She was murdered by Death Eaters when I was fifteen."

"Eileen Prince, if I am not mistaken?" Voldemort asked, twirling his wand as he spoke. The tension in the air was almost touchable. "Married a Muggle?"

"My father was nothing more than a filthy beast of a Mudblood," Snape spat, suddenly angry. "He deserved to die and I thank you for killing him."

Harry had a sudden memory of a little boy crouching in the corner of a room as his parents fought and screamed.

"You mother chose to ally herself with such garbage. Why do you protect her?" Voldemort said, evidently thinking he was being reasonable.

"My mother hated my father more than even I did!" Snape exclaimed. "He did nothing but hurt her all his life. She married him young and foolishly and would have done anything to be rid of him forever. Yet you saw fit to kill her for her childish mistake."

Harry stared at Snape as if he was seeing him for the first time. Suddenly the Half-Blood Prince made sense. Voldemort had killed his mother, and then Snape had crafted a name that honoured his dead mother and helped him get in with Voldemort's followers to seek his revenge. Snape had not just been ashamed of being related to Muggles, he had been ashamed of his abusive father and so he had ditched the dirty Snape name.

"She married a Muggle! She contaminated the ancient Prince bloodline!" Voldemort said, finally letting his rage show. He said Muggle as if it were a curse, hurling it off the end of his tongue like a bomb. "And I fail to see how your mother is connected with saving Potter!"

"I am a very accomplished Legelimens," Snape snarled. "I know who you are, Tom Riddle, and I know your secrets. I know that Potter is the only one who has any chance of defeating you. I tricked both you and that fool Albus Dumbledore into thinking I was loyal, when really I have had only one agenda: I have been protecting Potter, thwarting your every plan so that he may someday bring you down. Why else would I have returned from Grimmauld Place with only Draco when you sent me to capture him?"

"You told me he was not there!" Voldemort screamed, sounding most deranged now. He raised his wand.

In one fluid motion Snape had seized Harry, flung him behind a shrub in the flowerbed and made a slashing movement with his wand that blocked the curse Voldemort had sent at him. Even from behind the bush, Harry could feel the heat from the spell.

Jets of light zipped over the grass with a speed and frequency that Harry could not have even imagined. Snape and Voldemort were perhaps the most skilled duelers that he had ever watched. A burst of green missed Snape so narrowly that his dark hair ruffled and singed, but the Professor was unfazed, returning the curse deftly.

The red light that sailed from Snape's wand caught Voldemort off guard, hitting him square in the chest. The Dark Lord crumpled, Stunned, and Harry understood that Snape had not been aiming to kill. That would eventually be Harry's job. Harry jumped up and began to run toward the front door.

"My Lord!" a voice wailed. It was Bellatrix Black, landing her broom at her master's side.

"Muffliato!" Snape hissed, turning to Harry. "_Get out of here Potter!_ You must find the Horcrux before you can kill him!"

"I knew it! We should never have trusted you!" Bellatrix screeched. "Avada Kedavra!" Harry dived back into the house, but the spell was not meant for him. Snape fell, his brows creased in his ever-present dislike, and was still on the grass. Harry felt as if all the wind had been knocked out of him, but he did not have time to dwell on all that had happened. The Death Eaters, full of rage for the attack on their master, had resumed their siege of the house with full force.

The house's protectors surged forward around Harry, returning the Death Eaters' assault with renewed vigor. By no small miracle, none of them were hit as they downed Death Eater after Death Eater. Ginny had a very near miss and was only just saved by a shout of "Protego!" from Blaise.

Just when it seemed they could not hold them off any longer, Bill reappeared in a flash of light in the center of the room holding what appeared to be a 10 foot section of wooden railing. Harry did not have time to marvel at this strange sight, however, for Bill had cried for everyone to get a hand on the rail as it was leaving again almost instantly.

Harry dashed over, scooping up Kreacher's body as he went, and clapped his hand to the railing. The Death Eaters, their opponents gone, surged forward. There was a heart stopping moment when Bellatrix lunged for Dean and Seamus and Harry was sure they would be killed, but then there was a furious scream of "NO!" from Mathias Thomas and the air in front of them exploded. The force of the detonation blasted out the walls of the living room, hurtling the Death Eaters into the sky. The last thing Harry saw was Bellatrix Lestrange being tossed fifty feet up like an overgrown and very ugly rag-doll and then he felt a tug behind his navel, the Burrow dissolved and they were spinning away.

Seconds later, his feet slammed into hard stone. They had landed in a stone corridor that smelled damp and musty, as if they were underground. By the light of the sparse torch brackets, Harry could see people lying on the ground all around him.

"Lumos!" he muttered, and his wand tip lit brightly. His spell was echoed several times and they were bathed in the light of half a dozen wands. Harry could make out several doors off the passageway and, at the very end, a staircase with a long section of its railing missing.

"Is everyone OK?" he asked. Every nodded.

"Yeah, we are," Seamus said, "but why though? Where did that explosion come from?"

"I…I think it was Mathias," Harry admitted, remembering how Mathias had seemed to control his broom only hours ago. Everyone's eyes turned to the little boy, who had just gotten to his feet. He blushed under their scrutiny.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, thinking he was in trouble for blowing up the Weasley's house.

"You did magic!?" Dean exclaimed, jubilant. "Mathias, that's awesome!" The tall boy scooped up his tiny half-brother and hugged him. Mathias relaxed.

Shaking his head disbelievingly, Ron turned to Bill. "Where are we?"

"An abandoned section of Gringotts," Bill replied. "This used to be an administrative hall, but it's only about three stories underground. When the Muggles built their Metro through this area, they cut this passage off from the rest of Gringotts, so they abandoned it."

"Perfect," Harry said appreciatively. He opened the nearest door, revealing a large dark room full of old desks and what looked like many decades of dust.

"Scorgify!" Draco said, coming up from behind him.

"Huh, who would have though the rich boy would be good at household charms?" Harry teased Draco under his breath.

Draco winked and murmured, "It's a good thing one of us is. This one looks good!"

He said the last sentence at full volume, and their group began to crowd past the two of them and into the room. Hermione set about lighting the room with her portable blue flames, placing them in any jar or lantern she could find. Bill carried Kreacher's little body as he went inside. At last, Harry, Draco and Ron were left in the corridor with only the Weasley twins.

"Aren't you going in?" Harry said.

"No," Fred said. "We promised Oliver Wood we would come back for him."

"Oliver– ?" Harry began.

"Yeah, and seeing as now they have Mafalda and its really only a matter of time before Scrimgeour puts a price on our family's head, we had better go soon," George agreed.

"Do you have a plan?" Hermione said, appearing beside Draco.

"We were really just going to break everyone out, and then count on sheer numbers should overwhelm the Ministry," George admitted.

"Without wands?" Draco said, shrewdly.

"I know where they keep the wands, I can get some at least," Percy had joined them.

There was a moment of indecision, then Hermione said, "Oh all right. We had better hurry though, Harry. Remember, we have other stuff to be doing."

"Ok, let's go," Ron said.

"_Go where?_" said a voice, and George froze in the action of pulling on a midnight blue hat. It was Mrs. Weasley.

Fred explained quickly. "No, you will not!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed.

"Mum, what about Mafalda?" Bill said over his mother's shoulder. "They are right; she is in danger."

Mrs. Weasley seemed to wrestle with herself for a moment, and Harry saw her shoot a look at the still-Stunned Charlie lying inside the old office. "Oh all right, but just you seven! Take care of each other and get back here if it is too dangerous."

"Can we Apparate out of here Bill?" George asked.

Bill waved his wand. "You can now, I just removed the wards, but you can't Apparate into the Ministry."

"We'll go to visitor's entrance," Harry answered. He turned to Ron and Hermione. "You know where."

Seizing Draco and Percy, who were nearest to him, Harry readied himself to Apparate. Focusing all of his mind on the red phone booth and grasping the arms of the two men beside him, he turned and vanished into space.


	19. Fred and George's Revenge

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Hey everyone!_

_I'm so sorry this took so long to upload. I've just moved and had no internet since last week. Hopefully it was worth the wait?_

_Cat_

_Thanks to __**Maria **__(I'm glad you liked him, that's how I pictured him too…obviously, haha), __**Fred kissed George**__ (ah, I'm sorry I made you wait!), __**Tarkemelhion **__(eeep! I can't tell you the ending, but if you kill me now you'll never read it. And who knows, it might just be good? I'm not that mean, I swear), __**Fearylark **__(indeed it is, and for good this time!), and __**Pareidolia **__(sorry about Kreacher! I hate Bellatrix too, trust me!) for their encouraging reviews. This one is for you five!_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Fred and George's Revenge**

Harry appeared on a dingy side street with Percy and Draco at his sides. At the very end of the alleyway he could see the street he knew the phonebook stood on. Apparently this was as close as you could Apparate to the Ministry these days.

There were two more small pops and Ron and Hermione appeared, each holding the arm of a Weasley twin. The twin with the black eye, who Harry was pretty sure was George, looked around. "Where are we?"

"We're near the visitor's entrance to the Ministry," Hermione answered him, dropping his arm.

"Right," said Percy. "We need a way to get in."

"I was thinking we could use Disillusionment charms, and Harry's cloak," Hermione said promptly, a plan already forming in her head. "I think I can Transfigure at least three of you, and the other four can go in invisible."

"I can help you," Percy said. He too seemed to be in his element. "I got an O on my Transfiguration OWL."

"Oh right!" Hermione said, looking both taken aback and delighted to be working with somebody as smart as she. "Well, I was thinking that it had better be me, Draco and you, Percy, who get transfigured. I can just change my face and blend in fairly well. With any luck I can make Draco into a passable imitation of his father –"

"…Who's dead?" Ron pointed out. Draco flinched and Harry gripped his arm again.

"Yes," Hermione continued. "Hopefully he can bill himself as Lucius' cousin or something. Percy, well, you have to change the colour of your hair so you aren't so obviously a Weasley."

It was far from a foolproof plan, but it was the best they could think of. Hermione and Percy together managed to do a decent job of the Transfigurations. Draco's jaw line had been hardened and his eyes changed colour so that he bore such a strong resemblance to his father that Harry now got a little shiver down his back when he looked at him. Both Hermione and Percy were unrecognizable.

"Last but not least," Percy said, flourishing his wand. His clothes, along with Draco and Hermione's, changed into expensive looking black robes, with silver clasps. Percy looked at Draco inquisitively. "This something your father would wear?"

Draco examined his clothes with mild distaste. "Definitely," he sighed.

"Alright," Hermione said, pleased. "Ron, Fred, George, if you could all come here and we'll Disillusion you."

They stepped forward. Draco waved his wand, tapping it gently on Ron's head. Harry watched as his friend and his brothers slowly disappeared under the cloaking spells. Reaching into his robes, he pulled out the cloak.

"Right," Hermione said, nervously. "OK, now we just have to go in. I vote that we all pretend to be with Draco, so he ought to go in first."

When nobody argued, she continued. "Draco, you go first with Harry and Ron, and then Percy and I can each take one of the twins and meet you in the Atrium."

"Good idea," Draco agreed. "Who should we pretend to be?"

Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but there was a sudden sound of footsteps and a wizard in Ministry security robes came hurrying around the corner. Harry quickly pulled on the cloak.

"Oh, hello!" the wizard said in false pleasantness. "We thought we heard somebody talking down here. Is there anything we can help you with?"

"I should hope so," Draco sneered, continuing pretentiously, "We find ourselves lost while seeking your government."

"I'm sorry?" the bemused wizard asked rather weakly.

"We are looking for the Ministry of Magic," Hermione clarified.

"Sorry," the wizard said, still obviously confused, "but who are you?"

"Capricornus Malfoy," Draco said haughtily in a tone of voice Harry had not heard him use in a long time. Throwing an arm around Hermione, Draco drawled, "This is my wife Carina and her brother Leo."

Harry felt Ron stir beside him and he was sure his friend was mentally drilling holes into the back of Draco's head with his eyes.

"How do you do," Percy smirked disdainfully.

"Malfoy?" the little man asked, surprised. "Not related to Lucius Malfoy at all?

"I'm his cousin," Draco said briskly. "Not something I'm proud of, failure that he was."

"Cousin?" the man said with a trace of suspicion. "I wasn't aware that Lucius had family."

"If you knew my cousin well at all, you must have known that Lucius was disowned by his Muggle-loving parents for becoming a Death Eater. He did not bother to keep in touch with the rest of his family after that," Draco said impatiently.

Harry had not known it, but it must have been true because the man looked much less suspicious. "So, Mr. Malfoy, what brings you to the Ministry of Magic today? Incidentally, it is this way."

Their little group set off toward the visitor's entrance, Draco still talking. "We have been living abroad for these many years and we wish to move back to Britain."

"Oh, naturally you are here to apply for employment?"

"Naturally," Draco replied. They had reached the phone booth. It was surrounded by what looked like a Muggle tour group, but which Harry knew was a security force.

"Well, this is where I leave you, Mr. Malfoy. You'll be wanting the four floor, Department of Magical Employment and Career Advancement," the security man said. He made a shooing gesture to the tour group, and they parted to reveal the phone booth.

"You should all be able to cram into one ride down," the man said kindly.

"We most certainly will not!" Draco said, outraged. He stalked through the crowd, which gave him a wide berth that allowed Harry, Ron and the twins to jog through unnoticed. "Malfoys do not cram."

"Oh, of course," the man said, affronted. Draco stepped into the phone booth, holding the door open slightly longer than necessary. Harry slide in, his chest pressed against Draco's back, and Ron flattened himself against the closed door. Draco dialed.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," a woman's cheerful voice announced. "Please state your name and the nature of your visit."

"Capricornus Malfoy," Draco said confidently, "here seeking employment."

There was a long pause, and then the woman spoke again. "Would _all visitors _please state their name and the purpose of their visit?"

The security forces were beginning to stare at Draco. Hermione, cottoning on, called from outside the booth. "It's 6-2-4-4-2 dear!" she shouted, and then turned to the security men saying, "We've been away so long, you know."

"Thank you!" Draco yelled, the sound reverberating off of the walls of the booth. He pretended to dial again as the woman repeated, "Would all vistors please state their name and the purpose of their visit?"

Harry made a quick decision. "Regulus Black," he said the first name that came to mind, "and …Roonil Wazlib. We're here to visit friends."

"Thank you," the woman said pleasantly, and three badges spit out of the slot. Draco hurriedly covered them, stuffing the extra two in his pocket while pinning his own to his robes. The booth began to sink.

They fell through the earth, the only noise the scraping and grinding of the booth pushing its way underground, until slowly they emerged in the Atrium. Falling for a moment more through the air, they stopped between the two rows of Floo fireplaces.

"Welcome, visitors, to the Ministry of Magic. You are required to surrender your wand to be weighed. Have a pleasant visit." The doors clanged open and Harry and Ron jumped out, followed more gracefully by Draco.

They stood in the Atrium until the phone booth had shuddered its way down again, carrying Percy. The older boy had cleverly changed his robes again to match the robes worn by several of the Ministry workers scurrying around. When the doors to the booth opened, Percy merely gave them a curt "Good Morning" and stalked off through a door on their left.

Harry felt somebody invisible brush past him and he flung out an arm, catching the persons wrist. As the lift clattered upward for the second time, Harry pulled the twin toward him. "Fred?" he whispered, unnoticed in the busy Atrium.

"George," the voice said. "That's Harry, right?"

"Yeah. Where's Percy going?"

"Thought so, Ron's voice is much more feminine," Georege snickered. "Percy is going to get the wands. That's why he's dressed as a Guard."

"Oh," Harry whispered. The phone booth had reappeared yet again with Hermione inside. "So that's the way we're going then?"

The doors of the lift banged open and Harry felt another person close on his other side. "George?" Fred's voice asked softly.

"Harry," Harry said.

"Hey Fred," George said. "Have a nice ride?"

"I'll say. Much nicer reception coming into the Ministry this time, wasn't it?"

Both boys snickered as Hermione hissed, "Boys?"

"All here, Herimone," Ron whispered from nearby.

"This way," the twins said together, each grabbing one of her hands and pulling her the way that Percy had gone. Harry, Ron and Draco followed. Several corridors and two sets of stairs (not wanting to risk taking the lift) later, they found themselves in a corridor that was completely deserted. Harry gasped.

"The Department of Mysteries!" he felt a sick swoop in his stomach.

"Yeah," George, or Fred, said quietly. "They're holding everyone in the biggest courtroom."

"I guess they don't need it for trials anymore," Ron said scathingly.

They fell silent as several Guards walked past, sending Draco and Hermione odd looks. Just as Harry was exhaling in relief, a cold and demented voice called out to Draco and Harry boiled with rage. What was _she_ doing at the Ministry?

"Lucius?" a voice cackled, and Harry saw a trace of fear flicker across Draco's face before he turned to look at his aunt.

Bellatrix Lestrange looked most insane. Her hair had escaped the up-do she had haphazardly put it into and Harry was satisfied to see that she walked with a slight limp and had grass stains all down her front. Evidently, Mathias' explosion had done its job well.

Draco sneered, eyeing her dirty robes. "No, I am his cousin, Capricornus. May I ask who you are?"

Bellatrix's mouth was slightly open as she stared at Draco. Finally she composed herself, purring, "I was not aware that Lucius had family."

"Yes, I seem to be hearing that a lot today. He was not very proud of us and we were not fond of him either," Draco said.

"Well, if anybody would have known, it would have been I," Bellatrix said arrogantly. "My sister was Lucius' wife."

"Indeed?" Draco said with only the slightest expression of interest. "I suppose that would make us distant family. May I introduce my wife Carina and her brother Leo?"

Hermione offered her hand, but Bellatrix did not take it immediately. Arching an eyebrow at Draco, she asked, "Purebloods, I presume?"

"Naturally," Draco said easily. Harry was not so calm. It was only the knowledge that they must not be discovered that was keeping him from hexing Bellatrix until she no longer knew who she was.

"You can never be too careful these days," Bellatrix took Hermione's hand.

"Bella!" somebody called from down the hall. One of the Guards was hailing her to come upstairs. The Death Eater gave them a simpering smile and smiled repulsively. "Very fine to have met you Capricornus," she said.

"My pleasure," Draco lied and Bellatrix turned and hurried away to her comrades.

"Psst!" a voice said from close at hand. Harry looked around. Two doors away stood the Transfigured Percy, gesturing at them wildly to get inside the room he was entering. All six of them hastily obeyed.

The courtroom was slightly larger than Harry remembered it, or perhaps it was the number of people crammed inside that made him feel it _must_ be larger. Every level of the tiered seats were filled with people tied to the benches and then the center floor was full of hungry and scared looking children, many staring up at their parents in the seats above.

Rage filled Harry as one of these children began to cry and one of the many roaming Guards turned and Stunned the girl in the chest. "What do we do?"

Percy, Draco, and Hermione were still hidden from view by a stand. "We unlock them all and then somehow get them all a wand. Here," he tapped Draco and Hermione each on the head and they faded from view. "Spilt up and _make sure they don't get up until everyone is free._ I've got the wands in the other room."

They did as they were told, crouching and creeping along the aisles. The first person that Harry reached was a middle aged wizard. He bent by the man's ear. "Shhh," he said, and the man started but said nothing. "I'm going to unlock your chains, OK? Don't say anything, and don't get up until I tell you."

The man nodded almost imperceptibly and Harry murmured "Alohamora!", opening the lock. He crept to the next person, an old wizard with a large bald patch, and repeated the processes.

He had freed perhaps twenty people when he got the shock of life as he leaned over to whisper to the old wizard next along the row and found that he was not human at all. Harry hesitated a moment, staring at the goblin. He was unsure of how the creature would react when freed. Eventually, Harry concluded that he could not leave him tied while he freed the rest of the room and leave him to be a scapegoat. Leaning down, he murmured the plan into the goblin's overlarge ears.

After nearly half an hour, he had worked his way through what he thought was one seventh of the room. His back ached from crouching, but he got up anyway, treading as silently as possible around the room back to where Percy stood in the shadows under the pretense of guarding the door.

"Percy," Harry whispered into his ear, "I'm done."

"Me too," Draco said from Harry's left.

"Go get the wands," Percy mumbled from the side of his mouth, opening the door and pretending to scan the corridor. "They're in the cupboard next door."

Harry and Draco hurried past him, pushing open the door immediately to their left as quietly as possible.

They were standing in a room no bigger than the Potion's store cupboard at Hogwarts, where dozens and dozens of boxes of what looked like matchboxes stood on dark shelves. "He shrunk them…clever." Draco murmured, lifting half the boxes from the shelf.

Copying him, Harry lifted the other half. Checking the hall again, they darted back across, knocking feebly on the door.

"What was that?" a deep voice growled, and Harry's heart froze.

"I think it was a knock, sir," Percy's voice said with a touch of fear.

A dark, hooded man threw open the door. As he was looking around the hall, Harry ducked under his arm. The man snapped the door shut again, looking grumpy. "Must have been one of _them_ making a fuss again," the other Guard said to Percy, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the prisoners in the room. "So, what did you say your name is again?"

"Um, Weatherby," Percy said quickly. "Arthur Weatherby."

"You're new?" the man asked, his deep voice disinterested.

"Yes sir, replacing that Weasley traitor," Percy said with the appropriate venom.

"Traitor," the dark man spat out again. "Never would have thought him capable. Thought I knew him."

There was a pause, and then the man smiled. "Well, Weatherby, Weasley and I had a little deal that I'm hoping you'll continue. He would take my turn to watch the prisoners while I had a smoke and then I'd let him go to lunch early. How does that sound?"

"That sounds, um, great," Percy said as if he were mulling it over. Harry realized that Percy had counted on this. With this man gone, there were only three Guards in the whole of the room for them to deal with.

"Good, good," the man said, smiling more broadly. "Well, see you before lunch, Weatherby."

"Goodbye, sir," Percy said. As soon as the man had left the room, he sagged in relief.

"Perce, we're all back," Ron's voice whispered.

"Us too," Harry supplied, "with the wands."

"Pansy's parents are here," Draco said.

"So are Neville and Luna, along with the people from their safe house," Hermione hissed.

"What?" Ron said. "What happened?"

"Moody tried to go back to Hogsmeade, led them right into a Death Eater trap."

"That's weird," Harry said suspiciously.

"_OK,_" Hermione said, taking control. "Percy, Fred and George, Stun the Guards if you can. I'll go unlock the door for the children's enclosure and then Ron, you'll have to help me get them all out. Harry and Draco, get the wands to the wizards, whatever way you can."

She said this all very softly and very quickly and Harry could picture her face screwed up in nervousness and deep thought.

"I think we should become visible now," Draco suggested.

"Of course," Hermione agreed, tapping everyone near her with her wand. Ron, Fred and Draco appeared out of thin air before Hermione herself rematerialized. Percy, over his bout of nerves, ended the charm on George and Harry.

"OI!" a Guard called from across the room, catching sight of them all. Seized by a sudden inspiration, Harry grabbed the wand boxes from Draco and threw them, along with his own set, into the air. They sailed high over the heads of the nearest prisoners and into the space above the children.

"_Engorgio_! _Expelliarmus_!" Harry shouted. The wands boxes snapped back to normal size and wands flew out of them in every direction, sailing for the tiered seats.

"NOW!" Fred bellowed, already running for the nearest Guard, and almost as one the captured men and woman stood, snatching wands out of the air as they sailed past. All hell broke loose, which people pressing forward towards the door. Hermione and Ron had opened the door that led to the floor where the children were and they had run, frightened, straight for their parents. Fred, George, Percy and the three Guards were lost from sight in the chaos and Harry only managed to keep hold of Draco's arm as they were borne to the door on a tide of people rushing to freedom.

"Go to the Atrium! Use the fireplaces to go to Diagon Alley!" Harry yelled at the people pelting past him down the hall. He knew they had to all stick together; their only strength was in their numbers. He crashed up the stairs behind Draco and then down the hall that led to the Atrium. He saw stunned witches and wizards leap aside to avoid being trampled. Some tried futilely to stop them with curses, but their every spell met six Shielding Spells cast constantly by everyone in the pack.

They streamed out into the Atrium, now empty of the rush hour crowds, forcing the few wizards and witches who had worked late out of their way. In groups of two, three and four they headed for the fireplaces and shouts of "Diagon Alley!" filled the hall as the fugitives went up in brightly coloured flames.

Several of the braver and more foolish Ministry employees stepped forward and began to shoot curses into the dispersing crowd. One witch was Stunned as she stepped into a fireplace. Her husband had the quick wit to catch her and duck another curse. Tossing powder to the ground of the fireplace, he and his wife whisked out of site.

Disentangling himself from the crowd, Harry began to retaliate with a volley of his own curses. One of his Full-Body Bind jinxes hit a very large man in a dark robe. As his legs snapped together and his arms clapped to his sides, Harry realized that he knew who he was. Gregory Goyle Sr., Harry's classmate's father, looked just as stupid and cruel as his son. Harry was unfairly reminded of Uncle Vernon and was pleased to have cursed the man.

"Come on," Draco urged Harry, yanking him into a fireplace, snatching a handful of Floo Powder and yelling "Diagon Alley!"

Emerald green flames encircled him and he pulled Draco flush against him, holding him tightly as they whirled away from the Ministry. For the first time since he had begun using the Floo Network, Harry was aware of others around him all spinning the same way he was.

Suddenly they were sliding out from a very dirty grate and into a very crowded room. Madame Malkins Robes for All Occasions was so crowded that people were being quite literally forced onto the street. As others popped out of the fire behind them, Harry and Draco were jostled through the crowd. Holding the blonde's hand to keep him close, Harry smiled.

"Draco?" he said over the crowd. "Remember that this is where I first met you?"

Draco turned, grinning as he was buffeted by the crowd, "I recall being a little twerp."

"Well, you did manage to insult my only friend, make me feel awkward and turn me off Slytherin for life," Harry replied easily.

"Oh, don't lie to yourself, Potter," Draco smirked. "Nothing could turn you off Slytherins," the blonde winked and, in a surge of the crowd, pulled Harry forward and kissed him quickly. An old witch beside them gasped and Harry hurriedly flattened his fringe over his scar as they spewed finally from the door of the shop.

All around him, up and down Diagon Alley, crowds were spilling out of stores and even houses as hundreds of witches and wizards tried to get into Diagon Alley at once. Those already in the street were cheering, celebrating their freedom, but Harry was not foolish enough to join them. Pulling Draco by the same hand that he still held, Harry broke into a run down the street towards Gringotts. If Ron and Hermione were anywhere, they would be there.

Relief washed over him as he pushed his way past the last knot of people and onto the Gringotts steps. The Weasley twins were there, both looking scratched and bruised but generally unhurt. Beside them was a beaming Oliver Wood, Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson and, sitting on George's lap and crying openly, Mafalda. Percy seemed to have a broken arm and a large hole in his robes over his chest, but he too seemed to have escaped serious harm. Ron and Hermione, still disguised, both jumped up to greet him and Draco with cries of delight as soon as they saw them. The goblins guarding the door to the bank gave them deeply disapproving looks.

"I knew you'd be OK!" Ron said, thumping a hand onto Harry's still-aching back.

"Mum would have murdered us if you'd died," Fred said cheerfully.

"She may not have to," Percy interjected seriously. "We need to get back to Bill and the others somehow. He'll have put the anti-Apparition and anti-Portkey wards back up."

"Excuse me," an unknown voice interjected. Harry looked around for its source and, after a moment, realized it was the goblin at the door who had spoken.

"Uh, yes?" Hermione said, timidly.

"Did you say that you were looking for Bill Weasley?" the goblin croaked, his voice suddenly low. "He had warned me you would likely be coming."

The sun was getting low in the sky, hitting Gringott's front façade with a soft yellow light. "Yes," Harry said carefully. "We are looking for him."

"Very well," the goblin said softly. "I will help you."

The goblin turned to lead them into the building, but then there was a shout from the street.

"Harry Potter!?" a surly voice called from the base of the steps. For a heart stopping moment Harry was sure that it was a Death Eater, or else somebody from the Ministry. He whirled around, wand out, and his eyes landed on none other than Bulgarian Quidditch player and Triwizard Champion Viktor Krum.

"Viktor!" Hermione gasped.

"Krum!" Ron exclaimed.

"Viktor Krum!?" Harry replied, incredulously. "What are you doing here?"

Viktor had stomped his ungainly way up the stairs and was now feet from Harry. "I vos looking for Fleur, but I vos not prepared for the fight here! Vot is happening?"

Harry looked helplessly at Ron, who gave him a bewildered look. Turning back to Krum, Harry managed, "We're at war with Voldemort, he took all of these people hostage at the Ministry and we set them free."

Fighting had broken out in the street as people were jostled and bumped and ran around looking for their family and friends. Several people were arguing over whose wand was whose. "We have to get out of here!" Harry urged his friends.

"Viktor, come with us!" Hermione said as they all began to hurry up the steps.

"Who is this?" Krum asked Harry, confused.

"It's Hermione," Harry said over his shoulder. "She's in disguise!"

"Hermowninny?" Krum said, bewildered. A stray curse sailed just over his head; the people in the street had begun to brawl now. Harry watched as the wizard closest to Krum was punched in the face and his wand jerked out of his hand.

Harry was last up and he was at the doors. "Are you coming?" he turned and bellowed at Krum, who was looking thoroughly shocked. Shaking his head, he loped up the steps and slipped through the door just as the goblin guard left outside snapped it shut.

The goblin they were with was leading them straight through the center of the bank and Harry felt a strong desire to hide. Any second now, the goblins around them would recognize him and the wizard guards placed all around the room would attack. It took all his effort to keep walking as if nothing was wrong.

And yet they did not get attacked. Everyone who looked at them seemed to look from the goblin leading them to the space behind Krum without stopping. Their eyes seemed to slide right over the considerably large group of people in the center without seeing them.

The goblin lead them through a door off the main hall and then down a flight of stairs and down a large passage. Halfway down the hallway that led off from this passage they encountered a familiar face.

"Bill!" Ron exclaimed. Mafalda, who had been holding George's hand, ran down the passageway. Bill caught her easily, lifting her into his arms. Harry realized how small the girl really was for an eleven-year-old.

"Hello Ron," Bill said warmly. "Thank you very, very much Ragnok."

The goblin merely nodded and retreated back up the passage. Bill surveyed their party with weary happiness, "I take it you were successful?"

"Yes," Ron said with a hint of pride in his voice. "We freed everyone in the Ministry."

"Great," Bill said. "I'm very proud of you all. Now, we had best get back, Mum will be frantic."

"Oh lord, you're right," Fred said, cupping his face in his hands. "I can see it now. _Oh thank heavens! I've been worrying for hours! What were you thinking? You could have __**died**__! You could have been __**seen**__! You could have lost your father his jo_– oh wait…"

Harry, Ron and George burst out laughing, the sound of it ringing off the ceiling of the damp and empty hall.


	20. Gringotts

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Thanks to __**Fred kissed George**__ (heehee), __**Maria**__ (Here's an update for you then!), __**Tarkemelhion**__ (well, that make me feel better…lol), __**Moony**__ (yep, he's back), __**Faerylark**__ (It's Morphin' Time!), __**Pareidolia**__ (Bellatrix is an EVIL idiot), and __**Doctor Never**__ (haha, glad you caught it) for their reviews!_

_I'm trying to keep my updates as regular as possible! These chapters are longer and a lot more complicated to write as everything ties itself together. As you may have guessed, we are in the last few chapters now! That means that if you want to review (which I would __**love**__) and have your question/comment/rant replied to, you are running out of time!_

_This one is for my reviewers!_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Gringotts **

The eldest Weasley son led them down the passage some distance, until they reached a sudden break in the passage. Harry leaned over Fred's shoulder and peered into the hole. He had just enough time to register that it seemed that another tunnel was cutting this one when there was a sudden light and rush of wind and a Metro high-speed train roared past them. Nearly everyone jumped or screamed, but Bill merely blandly commented, "You'll want to be careful."

"No kidding!" Fred exclaimed.

"What the hell was that?" Ron demanded.

"A Metro train," Harry yelled, laughing slightly.

"Yes," Bill said as the train finally passed them. "We should go now, before another train comes. _Pontus_!"

A tiny, very short footbridge sprang into life across the gap. Marveling at the advanced spell work, Harry crossed quickly. As soon as they were all across, Bill waved his wand and the bridge disappeared. Moments later, another train roared past.

"Awesome," Fred and George said together. Lee Jordan grinned appreciatively and Bill led them on.

"Hello Harry," Oliver Wood greeted him for the first time as they continued after Bill down the passage.

"Hi Oliver," Harry said, smiling at his old captain. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Draco send Oliver a suspicious glance and he toned down the smile a bit. "How are you?"

"Loads better now that I'm out of there!" Oliver said, smiling.

"Oh come on Oliver," George teased, cuffing Oliver on the shoulder. "They didn't do much worse to us than Harry's suffered just playing Quidditch! Remember that time he lost all the bones in his arm?"

Everyone laughed at the memory and they had a few minutes good fun abusing Lockhart. Just when it seemed to Harry that they would walk forever, they went down a flight of stairs and there was a shrill cry from just a bit further down the passage.

"Bill?" Mrs. Weasley's voice was both hopeful and fearful. "Is that you?"

Bill strode up the passage, lighting the torch brackets as he went. No doubt having heard Mrs. Weasley's cry, people started crowding out of the room.

"Harry!" Ginny was the first to recognize them. She rushed forward, flinging herself on Harry. Draco's eyes shot daggers at her as Harry hugged back and then gently prized her off.

"Boys!" Mr. Weasley exclaimed, immediately stepping forward to help Percy with his injured arm.

"Mafalda!" Ginny cried, sweeping her young cousin from Bill's arms and into her own "I was so worried about you!"

"Harry, you're alright?" Dean asked. "Is that Oliver Wood?"

"_Is that Viktor Krum?_" Seamus gasped.

"Viktor!" cried Fleur, worming her way gracefully through the crowd. "'eat 'as been too long. 'ow are you?"

Seamus and Dean were still staring at the Quidditch star with their mouths slightly open. "I haf been good," Krum mumbled. "I vos coming to see you at Gringotts to see if they haf any jobs there for a vizard from abroad, but instead I find you are at war."

Fleur nodded sadly. There was a dense silence that was broken when Logan Thomas ran out of the door and exclaimed, "Mafalda!"

The young witch stirred from Ginny's side for the first time at the sound of her friend's voice. "Hi Logan," she said shyly, her eyes red from crying.

"Guess what?" Logan said and Harry realized he was wrestling with something behind him.

"What?" Mafalda asked, curious.

"I did magic!" came a slightly muffled voice from behind Logan and Mathias' head was briefly visible behind his brother's hands, a huge grin plastered on his face.

"I wanted to tell her!" Logan muttered, outraged.

"No way!" Mafalda exclaimed, her misery temporarily forgotten. "Maybe you're a wizard! Want to try my new wand?" she asked, running away through the door waving a wand she had no doubt just picked up in the courtroom. Mrs. Weasley went after her to make sure that Mathias didn't blow anything up.

"So where are we?" Lee asked nonchalantly a moment later.

"I vould also like to know," Krum agreed.

Fred laughed. "I'll explain," he offered.

Leaving Fred to tell the story, Harry walked into the room. Somebody had conjured a department store's worth of pillows, blankets and sleeping bags so that they covered nearly the entire floor. Some of the desk chairs had been Transfigured into armchairs and loveseats and the whole room was lit with a soft blue light from Hermione's fires. Blaise, his mother and Pansy were sitting chatting to Seamus' mother while the Thomas parents and Mrs. Weasley tried to wrestle Mafalda's wand from Mathias' hand. The only other person sat in the very far corner, staring placidly into space.

"Charlie!" Oliver cried in welcome, coming up from behind Harry. Charlie turned his head and gave Oliver a vague smile.

"Yes Mum?"

Oliver looked as if somebody had slapped him. Harry realized suddenly that Charlie had probably been Oliver's captain at one point at Hogwarts. How would he have reacted if it were Oliver sitting there, dazed and empty? He felt vaguely sick at the thought.

Mr. Weasley took Oliver's arm and led him away, presumably to explain what had happened. Everyone else tried to continue as if everything was normal, striking up conversations as they settled into the blankets and pillows. Harry was just about to say something to Draco and Ron when Mafalda came shuffling over, apparently having abandoned the wand with her aunt.

"Harry?" she said timidly. "Draco?"

"Yeah?" Draco said warmly and Harry was reminded how well the two got along.

"I, um," she stuttered uncharacteristically. "I wanted to say thank for rescuing me and all those other people."

"Oh," Harry was surprised. "You're welcome."

"It's nice to have family that I can be proud of," murmured Mafalda, blushingly.

This confused Harry. "What about your parents?" he asked. All he knew about them was that they were Muggles.

It was Mafalda's turn to look surprised. "I'm not proud of _them_! They're Muggles, they can't do anything. Loretta Stevens found out about them and told everyone and now I'm the laughingstock of Slytherin!"

Something deep in Harry hardened and he felt a rushing rise in his desire to wipe the type of bigotry and ignorance that Mafalda experienced from the Wizarding World. He had not felt this anxious to do something since Draco had been kidnapped.

Draco was kneeling in front of the girl now. "Mafalda," he was saying, "you _should_ be proud of your parents. Just because they can't do magic does not mean that they can't do anything. I think its amazing, everything they do _without_ _magic_. Had you thought of that?"

"But, Loretta…"

"Is wrong," Draco said fiercely, holding the girl's shoulder. Harry wished that Ron were listening to this, it would certainly help convince him how Draco had changed, but he had wandered away.

Bill and Blaise's mother walked by behind him, and he caught a strain of their conversation. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Zabini," Bill was saying, "but I really can't get anything out of your vault. I couldn't even if I _was_ still employed here."

"Can't you ask a goblin to do it?" the woman asked pleadingly. "My grandmother's wedding ring, if somebody stole it…"

"No, I'm sorry," Bill said regretfully. "Even a Gringotts goblin needs the vault owner or their house elf to authorize the opening of the vault."

Harry whipped around, staring at Bill. Hermione had turned too, wild excitement in her eyes. "What," Harry asked Bill, "did you just say?"

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

It had taken quite a lot of persuasion for Mrs. Weasley to let them leave the room, even when they told her they would only go a few rooms down. Fred Weasley had not helped matters when, upon hearing their request, he had remarked rather loudly to Oliver, "Ah, the seventeen-year-old libido, I remember it well."

Mrs. Weasley had given the four of them, of which Hermione was the only girl, a rather calculating look after hearing this. Eventually, however, she had relented and allowed them to leave when Harry swore to her that it really was for the good of wizardkind.

As soon as they had found another abandoned office and broken into it, Hermione turned to Harry, saying, "Did you hear that? Only owners of a vault _or their house-elves_ can ask a goblin to open it!"

Harry nodded vigorously, "So that means that even though Regulus was dead, Kreacher could still access his Master's gold?"

Ron gasped. He looked from Harry to Hermione, exclaiming, "If Kreacher could get into the vault without Regulus, maybe he put it there!"

"Great," Draco said. "How are we supposed to know Regulus' vault number?"

"How on earth are we meant to get at it? Kreacher is dead," Draco pointed out.

"No…" Hermione said slowly.

"No what?" Ron asked.

"Not Regulus," Hermione said impatiently. "Of course Kreacher couldn't access Regulus' vault after he died. Presumably a house elf would have to be on their Master's orders just to get to Gringotts in the first place."

"So it's not here?" Ron said, disappointed.

"No, I think it is…Gringotts vaults are inherited through blood, so his vault would have gone to Sirius," she mused, then looked at Harry questioningly.

"And Sirius' stuff was all emptied out and put in my vault as per his will!" Harry exclaimed, excitement coursing through him.

"Still, that begs the question," Draco said without enthusiasm, "how did the elf get the locket into the vault. Somehow I doubt he would have risked confiding in his new Master."

There was a pause and then Ron grinned. "Sirius told him to get out, remember?" he reminded them. "What if, before he went to Bellatrix Lestrange, he came to Gringotts?"

"He put the locket in the vault then!" Harry cried.

"Before Sirius died!" Hermione agreed. "Harry, that means it must be in your vault!"

Excitement coursed through Harry as he stood there in the darkened office. They knew where the last Horcrux was. In fact, they were in the same building as it was. Harry had the fleeting mental image of the locket, the shard of Voldemort's soul pulsing like a heart inside it, hidden amongst the many riches of the House of Black in his vault miles below.

"Ok," Draco said, ever the level-headed one, "but still, how do we get to it? Kreacher is dead."

"We have Harry!" Ron said as if this was obvious.

"Right, because he can just go striding into Gringotts and ask to get some gold. How foolish of me," Draco said sarcastically. Ron glared.

Hermione bit her lip. "We'll have to ask Bill to get one of his friends to help us again."

"I suspect it's a lot harder to sneak people into the vaults than it is to just get them into the main hall," Harry said, his elation fading a bit.

"No doubt they will have some type of guard on your vault in particular. I doubt that you will be able to draw money if they actually know that you are doing it," Draco added.

There was a small knock on the door and it cracked open. Mafalda leant her head around the door, smiling when she saw them there. "Auntie Molly wants you all to hurry back," she said.

Draco smiled at the girl. "Would you do us a favour Maf?" Draco said, using his pet name for the girl. "Would you tell Mrs. Weasley that we can't come back just now and that we need Bill?"

"She won't like that," Mafalda warned, smiling, and retreated.

"What are you going to ask Bill?" Hermione asked.

"He's a curse breaker," Harry, understanding, said with a grin. "If anybody knows what we are going to face, it's Bill."

"Plus, we need him to find us a goblin," Ron reminded her. There was a knock at the door and Bill entered the room.

"Mafalda said you needed me?" Bill asked.

"Mum let you out them?" Ron said, mildly surprised.

"Yeah, well I think she wanted me to go check you all weren't shagging like rabbits in here," Bill grinned.

Ron's mouth fell open as Draco and Harry laughed. Hermione sighed, "Honestly, boys. We have important things to do."

"Right," Draco said recovering his composure, though a muscle still twitched in the corner of his mouth. "Bill, we need to get something from a vault."

"If this is about you mother's favorite tea set or something..." Bill began.

"It's not," Hermione interrupted. "We need the thing in the vault to kill Voldemort. It's his."

"To kill..?" Bill trailed off. "You are all crazy."

"We're not," Ron assured him. "There is something of his that we have to destroy."

"It would be suicide to try and get into the vaults right now," Bill urged. "Please don't try."

"We _have_ to," Draco said. "Is there any way you can help us?"

Bill considered them for a very long time. Finally, he drew a long breath. "Who's vault is this thing of Voldemort's in?"

"Mine," Harry replied.

"_Yours_?"

"Yes," Harry said.

Bill stared at him, but when Harry did not explain further, he cleared his throat. "Well, that's good I guess. Harry's vault is only medium security. Still you'll need a goblin to drive the cart…"

"Exactly," Hermione agreed.

"You are sure you have to go?" Bill asked again.

"Yes," Ron said firmly.

Bill paused for another moment and then sighed. "All right," he relented. "I'll see what I can do."

He turned to go. "Oh, and Ron?" he said from the doorway. "Mum said she could really use your help next door."

Ron opened his mouth to protest, but Hermione gave him a stern look. Harry thought he saw her mouth the word _Charlie_ at him. Ron sighed and three of them began to trudge from the room. Harry went to follow, but Draco stopped him.

Grabbing his sleeve, Draco pulled Harry back into the room, letting the door swing shut heavily. They were left standing in semi-darkness about a foot from each other. All at once, Draco balled his fist into Harry's shirt and pulled him flush against him. Both boys moved at once, their lips meeting desperately and with a terrifying finality. They kissed each other as if it were the last time they would ever kiss. Eventually, Draco pulled away for air. Lacing his fingers in Harry's thick, dark hair, Draco brought the other boy's head against his chest and held him close. Harry closed his eyes and breathed deeply, intoxicated by the smell and feel of his secret boyfriend.

"This is it, isn't it?" Draco asked softly.

"Hmm?" Harry replied, slightly punch-drunk.

"This is the real battle," Draco said, slightly in awe of his own words. "The winner-takes-all fight."

Harry unconsciously pulled Draco closer, nodding mutely into his chest.

"You can do it," Draco said, sounding almost defiant, as if Harry had expressed aloud his secret fear of failure. Harry nodded again and Draco, apparently unable to take it anymore, seized Harry's chest with both hands and shoving him against the door. Sealing him there with his own body, Draco kissed Harry hard. Harry returned the kiss with fervor and both boys moaned. Harry shifted his body under Draco so that one of the blonde's legs fell in between his own. Draco slipped his knee up the wall, so that Harry's weight was resting mostly against his leg and pushed against him. Harry gasped and Draco slipped his tongue into Harry's mouth, making him moan.

Holding the dark-haired teen's hips, Draco ground his hips gently in circles against Harry, feeling both of them get more and more turned on. Harry wiggled around and managed to get his robes off so that they were scrunched against the wall behind him. Copying him, Draco quickly shed the shabby cloak he was wearing, the charms Percy had cast on them having worn off. Immediately, Harry's hands were tugging off Draco's shirt, the black cotton bunching under his arms for a moment, and then they were playing across the pale bare skin. Panting, Draco pulled Harry away from the wall just enough that the robes behind him fell to the ground and Draco was able to tug Harry's shirt off as well. Their chests collided as Draco pushed Harry against the door again, making them both moan again as they resumed their kiss. Harry lifted his leg and wrapped it around Draco's waist, pulling him even closer. Draco began to run his hand up the underside of Harry's leg.

"_Abero_," Harry panted against Draco's mouth. Suddenly the cloth under Draco's hands changed from coarse jean to smooth leather. The blonde laughed, breaking the kiss.

"_The_ Pants, Harry?" he smiled at the other boy. "At a time like this?"

"I was kind of hoping you might jump me at some point, for one la…"

He trailed off, but Draco knew what he was going to say. "One last snog?" he asked defensively. "Planning on dumping me after you kill Voldemort?"

"No, I…"

"Because you are going to beat him Harry!" Draco said forcefully, hugging Harry against him again.

"Harry….? Draco…?" A voice called faintly from outside. Both boys jumped a bit and snatched their shirts.

"This is our last kiss," Draco hissed as he jammed his shirt on and Harry did up his robes, "_for now_."

Hermione opened the door just as Harry tapped his leg again, returning to his jeans, and Draco did up the clasp of his own robe. "There you two are!" she exclaimed, and eyed them suspiciously. "I have bad news. Bill says that the goblins won't cooperate with us. They refuse to steal from Gringotts, no matter what…What have you two been up to all this time?"

Draco sent Hermione a winning smile. "It's OK, Hermione," he said, using her given name. "Harry and I were talking and thought up a plan. We could use brooms!"

Harry and Hermione gawped at him. Harry could not help but be slightly impressed with Draco's ad-libbing ability. If it were not for his messy hair and pink cheeks, Harry would not have suspected Draco at all.

"Brooms?" Hermione said, confused.

"Uh, yeah…" Harry said, playing along, "brooms."

Hermione looked at them, evidently expecting more. When they simply stared at her in silence, she pointed out, "If you could just fly into the bank, it wouldn't be very hard to steal from, would it?"

Harry had no reply to that, but Draco did. "Obviously, Hermione," he reassured her. "We'll have to get a goblin to let us in."

"I just said…"

"_I know_," Draco assured her. "The goblins won't help _us_. So we don't let them know that it's us."

"You mean disguise ourselves?" Hermione said skeptically. "They must have ways of detecting disguises."

"In the vaults, sure," Draco continued confidently. "We only have to get through the doors to the tunnels and then we can just, _whoosh_, fly off." He made a flying hand motion when he said the word whoosh and Hermione stared at him as if he were mildly insane.

"We'd have the whole security of Gringotts on us before we could even say _locket_!"

"Of course we would," Draco said cheerfully. Hermione stared some more.

"_So_…"

"So we use decoys," Draco explained. "Two of us will fly in the wrong direction. The other two will be invisible and fly off toward Harry's vault."

Harry really was impressed that Draco could just think that whole plan up on the spot. Hermione frowned and bit her lip again. After a moment of silence, Draco seemed unable to contain himself. "Come _on_, Hermione," Draco said. "It's a good plan!"

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Darkness had fallen on the crowd still surging inside Diagon Alley. Neville had managed to secure himself a wand and was keeping it tucked until his robes; he was no good at dueling if somebody decided to fight him for it. Pushing his way through the crowd, he spotted a face he knew: Mad-Eye Moody. Even as he moved towards him, however, the older man slumped forward and landing on his knees, clutching his gut and moaning.

"Professor?" Neville reached the man, who was writhing in his place. By the light of the streetlamp nearby, Neville could see the man's face scrunched up in pain. Then, before his horrified eyes, he began to change.

Neville had never seen somebody transform under Polyjuice Potion, so it took him several moments to figure out what was happening to Moody. He took several steps back and Moody's glass eye was forced grotesquely from his face. The eye rolled over the cobblestones of Diagon Alley and Neville hurriedly snatched it up.

"Who are you?" Neville hissed. "Where's Professor Moody?"

The man on the ground let out a harsh, dry laugh, but did not reply.

"Neville? Neville?" Somebody was calling Neville's name through the crowd. Instinctively, he turned toward the sound. Luna was worming her way through the crowd, holding a dark wand aloft ahead of her and lighting the faces around her. As she passed, each wand-less person followed the wand with their eyes hungrily, but Luna seemed not to notice them.

Neville raised his hand in greeting and, spotting him, she pushed her way over. "Neville!" she exclaimed happily, throwing her arms around him and kissing him lightly. He smiled at her. Even in the craziness of the situation, Neville feel a bizarre desire for people around him to notice him with this beautiful girl.

"What's wrong with him?" Luna asked, pointing at the fake Moody. "I hope its not Purple Gustares, because those are serious, Neville."

The man on the ground, who Neville had momentarily forgotten, gave an awful, shuddering gasp and laughed, bark-like. "Neville?" he half-coughed, half-laughed. "Neville _Longbottom_?"

"That's right," Neville said defiantly, hugging Luna to his side.

"How are your parents?" the horrible man chuckled, still clutching his stomach. "It's been a while since I paid them a visit."

Then the man looked up. His face no longer bore any resemblance to Mad-Eye Moody. Instead, a dark beard and thick black hair nearly covered his thin and haggard face. With a swoop of fear and anger, Neville realized who he was.

"Rodolphus Lestrange," he breathed, pointing his wand at the man. "You tortured my parents."

"Well, at least you turned out quicker than them," Lestrange wheezed as his fingers bubbled and grew more knobby.

A surge of fury shot up Neville's throat. He was not even aware of having pushed Luna backwards and out of the way, but in the next second he was doing something he had thought he would never resort to. "Crucio!" Neville screamed over the noise of the crowd. Several people around him screamed, pushing each other to get away from the dueling wizards, but Neville did not care. He just wanted to cause Lestrange as much pain as possible.

The man before him screeched in pain until Neville couldn't bear to do it any longer. By now, a wide circle of people had formed around them. Neville could sense Luna mere feet behind him and her presence made him feel braver. He dropped his wand, ending the spell, and then pointed it again at the man's face. "Where is Alastor Moody?" he demanded.

Gasping for breath, Lestrange choked out, "Dead. I killed him months ago and took his place."

"No!" Luna gasped from behind him. Neville knew that Luna had looked up to Moody.

"That's how you found the safe house," Neville reasoned, feeling sick. "It was you all along. You sent us into the trap."

"Yes," Lestrange smiled evilly.

"But why stay disguised as Moody all this time?" Neville asked. "It's been nearly a week since the attack."

"My Lord," wheezed Lestrange, clutching his arm, which Neville thought he might have broke flailing around, "requested it."

"Why Moody, though?" Neville asked. "Why not somebody at the Burrow, where Harry was?"

"We assumed you would keep Potter with a trained Auror instead of a blood-traitor and his dumpy wife."

"The Weasley's are great wizards!" Neville shouted. Rodolphus laughed, getting to his feet.

"That's a pretty girlfriend you've got there, Longbottom. I wonder how she'll look when I'm done with her. Crucio!"

Before Neville could so much a turn, Luna had been hit in the chest with the spell. She fell to her knees, moaning and shaking. Neville was perversely proud that she did not scream or flail like Lestrange had. "Stupify!" Neville bellowed at the Death Eater.

The spell reflected off him. Neville tried a slew of other spells, he tried everything Harry had ever taught him in the DA, but each spell seemed to glance off an inviable barrier around Lestrange. The man himself simply cackled louder with each of Neville's failed attempts to attack him. Luna whimpered and groaned and fell flat on her face on the ground, twitching. Neville lost it.

"Avada Kedavra!" he hissed. Lestrange had only time to turn, surprised, before the green jet sliced through the shield as if it had never been there. It struck the man in the heart. His hair blew wildly around for a second, though there was no wind, and then he crumpled to his knees and keeled over. Neville's stomach lurched. The crowd around them gasped and dozens of voices began murmuring furiously.

Neville skidded over to where Luna lay unmoving. He turned her over, laying her head on his folded knees. After a heart-stopping second, her eyes cracked open. Neville felt the familiar sensation of falling into the endless blue orbs and whispered, "Are you ok?"

Even over the voices of their fellows, his voice carried the foot between them easily. Luna smiled vaguely, "I guess it wasn't Gustares."

"No," Neville chuckled weakly, running his hands through her hair.

"That was very brave, what you did," Luna said softly.

"I just killed somebody," Neville said, feeling even more ill as he said it. He felt as if something in him had been torn and destroyed.

"It's something Harry would have done," Luna said. She admired the Boy-Who-Lived just as much as Neville did.

"He wouldn't have killed him," Neville said, regretfully.

"He would have," Luna insisted, sitting up, "if it was necessary to save one of us."

Neville smiled weakly at his girlfriend, getting to his feet and then pulling her up too. The crowd around them was dispersing. Luna threaded her arms around his waist, reassuringly warm and okay. They stood together for a moment, and then Neville stepped away and took her hand. They began to walk, holding hands, up the street.

"Where are we going?" Luna asked.

"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes," Neville said, just deciding himself. "Ron taught me to pick locks, I can get us in. Fred and George won't mind."

"Okay," Luna agreed trustingly. They walked in silence for a few more minutes. Nearly everyone in the street had either gone into a shop or found a bench to lie. Neville knew they would stay the night here. In large numbers, they were safe. Apart, they would just be captured again.

"So," he asked Luna finally. "What are Gustares?"


	21. Riddle, Black and Potter

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Thank you to __**orene treke**__ (hopefully it's a good big finish!), __**Tarkemelhion**__ (thank you, I'll enjoy it while I can then), __**Maria**__ (Nev and Luna are cute!), __**Pareidolia**__ (don't worry, Charlie is a strong guy but it'll take time),__** Faerylark**__ (he's certainly living up the the Gryffindor name now), __**karin85**__ (I'm glad you like him!), and __**Fred kissed George**__ (maybe he'll ask about Nargles next? We'd all like to know…) for their excellent reviews!_

_Sorry this is taking me so long to update, my life is suddenly insanely busy and I don't want to rush the ending! Please review and make my day!_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Riddle, Black and Potter**

"There really is nothing more revolting than Polyjuice Potion," Ron observed as he surveyed a grey potion that was slowly bubbling up the flask in his outstretched hand.

"Oh grow up Ron," Hermione chided him. "We are exceptionally lucky that Bill could get us any at all."

Ron stopped complaining. It was true, it had taken Bill nearly two hours to sneak out of Gringotts, break into the nearest apothecary and steal the potion. He had returned with a nasty cut on his arm from an over-zealous mother who owned the store and thought he was a Death Eater.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "That mad witch could have killed him."

"Oh, don't _say_ that," Hermione requested, looking a bit pale. "I'd rather not think about anyone dying. Flora Bunket."

"Excuse you," Ron offered.

"No," Hermione said impatiently. "We are becoming Flora Bunket and her family."

"_Who?_" Harry asked.

"The 'mad witch' from the shop," Hermione explained. "Bill took some off her and her children in the little scuffle they had. Then he stole their keys after he Stunned them."

Draco whistled. "Not bad," he conceded. "Your brother is surprisingly cool, Weasley."

Ron seemed to decide to take that a compliment and he smiled. Harry could not help but smile too when he saw the two most important men in his life getting along so well.

"Here you go," Hermione dropped a short hair into Ron's flask. "You'll be Mr. John Bunket, and I'll be Flora."

Harry and Draco held out their flasks of potion expectantly and Hermione dropped a curly hair into each of them. "You two," she waved her free hand at them, "will be our sons, William and Quentin."

"I get to be William," Draco said instantly.

"Aw, I don't want to be _Quentin_," Harry complained.

"My uncle's name is Quentin," Hermione scathed at them, though Harry expected that she was angrier for their wasting time than anything.

Ron was eyeing his now-beige potion with distaste. "Let's get this over with, shall we?"

"We've got the brooms?" Hermione asked.

"Yes," Draco confirmed.

"The keys?"

"Yes," Harry replied.

"Even your key, Harry?"

"_Yes_."

"O….okay then," Hermione said and raised her flask to her lips. As one they tipped the potion down their throats and gasped as it burned down their bodies.

Though Harry could not see the sun set outside he knew it must be late. His eyes began to ache at the sides and he found himself blinking unnaturally often, as if his eyelids were taking very frequent, very brief naps. When they returned to the room, he could see the effects of the long day on everyone around him as well. Mafalda, Logan and Mathias were all curled together in a tangle of limbs on a pile of pillows and fast asleep. Fred Weasley was sitting against a wall, his eyes closed and his head lent back so that Harry could see every inch of his throat. Angelina sat between his legs with her back against his chest, asleep. George and Oliver were playing a half-hearted game of chess on a set Bill had conjured them in an attempt to stay awake.

The only person who seemed perfectly alert was Percy, who was staring almost unblinkingly down at Charlie as he slept. Harry could see that the third brother was still trying to digest what had happened. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, leaning together on a loveseat in the center of the room, were sending both of them frequent worried glances. The four of them did not linger. Quickly they explained to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley where they were going, ignoring their cries of "No!" and "You mustn't!", and then they went on their way. Harry wondered when he would see them again.

Ten minutes later, they stood in the atrium of Gringotts, a happy family of four. Ron now greatly resembled Remus, but younger and healthier, while Hermione reminded Harry of a much-older Luna. Draco stared at Harry through laughing blue eyes under dirty blond curls. Harry knew that the boy he was impersonating, Quentin Bunket, was an eight-year old carbon copy of his older brother but with brown eyes and a smaller frame.

Together they stood in the glow of the lamps high, high above them and waited in line to be served. Finally they reached the front of the queue, which Harry thought was rather over-long for such a late hour. He suspected that many of the unblemished Wizarding families, those still free to do business, were drawing gold in anticipation of a big battle to come.

"Names?" the goblin at the desk asked them curtly.

"John Bunket," Ron supplied in a surprisingly deep alto. Hermione blushed a bit beside him.

"Flora Bunket," she said. "These are our children, William and Quentin."

"Key?" the goblin demanded. Ron pulled the Bunket's vault key from his pocket with sweaty hands.

"H-Here," he handed it over. The goblin inspected it carefully.

"Very well," the goblin said finally. "Our Head of Security himself will take you down to your vault. Ragnok?"

Harry's stomach did a nervous little flip as the Bill's goblin friend approached them. He felt a stab of regret that they were about to double-cross the same goblin that had helped them only hours ago.

Hermione reached out to Harry and he obediently took her hand like a good child. Draco ran ahead, bouncing with excitement and exclaiming to a tense Ron that they might see a dragon, just as they had rehearsed. Ragnok lead them along a corridor off of the atrium and then though a door some way down the hall.

As they stepped though, a wave of cold and damp air washed over all of them. Though the passage in which they stood was also made of marble, just visable was the bend in the tunnel where it turned to earth and plummeted downward. The whole place had the odd feeling of being underground, though Harry knew they were not. The mine car-like trolleys stood expectantly in front of them in a line of a dozen or so. Harry followed Hermione into one, where he settled awkwardly on her lap. Draco clambered in after him, followed by Ron and Ragnok. The goblin inspected the key that was still in his hands.

"Vault 437?" he asked them.

"Er, yes," Ron said gruffly.

"Very well," the goblin said, and with that the cart began to move. It lurched around the blind corner and the ornate candle chandeliers were replaced by torch brackets and the marble gave way to wood and soil. Suddenly, and without warning, they plummeted downwards.

It was like being on a roller coaster. The lights of the torch brackets streamed past them so quickly that the light of one bled into the next and they appeared to Harry as a bright blur along the walls. He screamed; he couldn't help it. His stomach somewhere his tonsils, he wondered if he would be able to pass off the scream as one of excitement, but from the amused look that Draco was giving him he doubted it.

Several times they roared past other passageways and once they passed a looming dark figure that Harry suspected may have actually been a dragon. Finally, when Harry felt they must have fallen for miles and miles, they swerved wildly into a side tunnel that leveled violently. Feeling most of his organs twist and continue zooming downwards even as they pulled to a stop, Harry moaned a bit.

"Are you ok, sweetie?" Hermione asked in a mothering voice.

"Uh huh," Harry grunted, climbing out of the cart onto the stone ledge. Ragnok had already unlocked the Bunket's vault and was staring at them expectantly.

Hermione acted. "Stupefy!" she whispered, and Ragnok fell over, unconscious. Somewhere, an alarm sounded.

"Ok," Draco said, immediately. "We have about a minute before security gets here. They'll know he's been Stunned. Remember the plan?"

"Yes," Ron murmured back. "Here are your brooms." He pulled two shrunken brooms from his pocket and enlarged them.

"Good luck," Hermione whispered, slightly fearfully.

"You too," Harry said. Then Ron tossed him a broom, he mounted it and he and Draco sped off down the passage.

Ron and Hermione got to work. The plan was to make it look like the Bunkets had tried to rob the vaults around theirs. Using anything and everything heavy that they could find in the Bunkets' vault, they made quite a show of hammering and denting the doors of several nearby vaults. It was not long before a large contingency of security goblins were to be heard clamoring down the passage. When they caught sight of Ron and Hermione, they laughed mirthlessly and derided them plainly in gobbledygoek.

"Run kids!" Ron yelled, as rehearsed. Hermione dropped two Decoy Detonators behind her back and they scuttled noisily in two different directions, sound very much like trainers pounding on stone. The goblins stared after the retreating noises, looking unsure about what to do.

Ragnok was stirring beside them. All at once he seemed to recover his sense and he jumped to his feet. He whipped a mirror from his pocket and pointed it at them. Ron and Hermione were startled and horrified to see their own faces looking back. Apparently, Polyjuice Potion did not fool this mirror.

Ragnok stared at the mirror for a second, indecisive, and then seemed to make up his mind. His fixed a cold stare not on Ron or Hermione, but on the goblins before him.

"Not very impressive," he chided them all, speaking in English for Ron and Hermione's benefit. The other goblins stared blankly back at him.

"Had these been real intruders, they would have escaped by now!" Ragnok shouted at them.

There was a collection of confused mutterings from the security force. Finally, one of them murmured a question at Ragnok timidly.

"Yes it was a test!" Ragnok bellowed back. "You did not pass! You let the intruders in! You allowed their accomplices to escape! You did not bring any back up wizard support!"

The goblins all hung their heads, ashamed.

"Shall we round up the children?" one brave goblin asked.

"They were not children," Ragnok waved his hand airily. "Transfigured rats. I would suggest you return to your posts. I will escort my colleagues out myself and will expect a full report on what you did wrong from your squad leader by tomorrow. Do you understand?"

The goblins murmured their assent and then trudged back up the tunnel. Ragnok climbed into the cart again, followed by a stunned Ron and Hermione.

"I will take you back to Bill," Ragnok hissed angrily at them. "I will then have to flee before they discover your accomplices. I will not even attempt to help them, do you understand?"

Ron and Hermione nodded mutely as the cart began to ascend again. Their job was done. Now it was up to Harry and Draco.

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD

Harry and Draco sped along at breakneck speed through the dark tunnels. Harry wished that he had though to ask Hermione for some portable fire; it was very dark here. The occasional torch bracket that had seemed to blur by while in the cart seemed oddly spaced apart now, so that Harry could see Draco only every once and a while. He flicked in and out of the firelight like an illusion and Harry felt himself asking him questions just to know he was really still there.

"Do you know which way we are going?"

"Yes," Draco hissed into the rushing air around them.

"You remember my vault number, right?"

"_Yes_."

"Oh good," Harry racked his brain for another question. "Do you think they'll catch us?"

"They will if you keep talking," Draco pointed out and as if ha had summoned them, a little force of goblin security appeared silhouetted in the tunnel ahead of them. Draco swerved into a side tunnel, Harry right behind him straining his ears for any noise that might indicate that they had been spotted. When there were no shouts or running footsteps, Harry exhaled loudly and relaxed a bit.

The side tunnel that they had shot into dived almost vertically downwards. With no choice but to do the same, the boys plummeted into the increasingly heavy darkness. Harry's lungs and nostrils filled with damp, musty air.

"Pull up!" Draco shouted suddenly. Harry obeyed him without question and it was a good thing he had. The tunnel suddenly leveled out and began to curve upwards again, almost instantly the passage gave way to a huge cavernous hall with no visible floor and the tracked abruptly ended, like a giant ski jump, and dropped away into the darkness. Any cart that rolled down that tunnel would send itself and its riders to destruction.

"Look," Draco said in an awed voice, waving his hand in a circle around them. Harry looked. The hall stretched out for great distances on either side of them. As his eyes began to adjust, Harry could see that the walls were pocked with the openings of hundreds of other tunnels, some of which dropped straight through the ceiling.

"How are you supposed to know which tunnels go to the vaults and which ones end up here?" Harry asked.

"I don't think you are," Draco murmured. "I'll bet only the goblins know. That's while Bill insisted we have a goblin help us or not go, I suppose."

"But the drop would kill anybody who made a wrong turn!"

"Yes," Draco agreed, "and if not the drop, _those_ would certainly do it."

Harry followed his gaze. For a second he thought that somebody had lit a fire on the floor of the cavern, but the jet of flame was extinguished almost instantly. Harry realized what it must be. His suspicions were confirmed when the next jet of light fell upon a forked tail and shiny scales.

"_Dragons_," he breathed, remembering Halcyon from the cave under the Uffington Dragon. Somehow he guessed that it would not be as easy to talk to these dragons, for there _were_ several of them, he now realized.

"I'm glad we weren't in a cart," Draco said finally, tearing his eyes away from the creatures below and turning his broom left away from Harry. "Come on, one of these is bound to take us back up to your vault."

They streaked off again, dodging the occasional column of rock and flying over the heads of dozens of dragons. Draco picked a large passage that dropped nearly vertically into the cavern through the ceiling and zoomed up it.

It took them several minutes to finally locate Harry's vault and Harry could feel the constraints of time pushing in on him. He wondered how Ron and Hermione were and whether they had escaped the goblins. How long did he and Draco have before the security found them?

Pulling up in front of the vault, they dismounted silently. Harry had not been here in what felt like a very long time and the lock had collected a fine layer of dust. He laid his broom against the wall and slid the key into the ancient door. Clicking the lock over with a dull clang, Harry pulled the door open heavily.

Just as it had in his first year, the amount of gold in his vault surprised him. Piles and piles of galleons lay over every square inch with dustings and spots of silver and bronze which were the less valuable sickles and knuts. Among the money lay treasures, most of which Harry had never looked twice at. He looked now and he saw Potter family heirlooms, piles of old books and, set atop a pile of galleons, a Head Boy badge.

Treading his way carefully through the treasure, Harry plucked the badge from its perch and tucked it into his pocket. Its pressure and weight were irrationally comforting. Harry glanced over at Draco, who was sitting amid a pile of silverware, and he suddenly wondered what his father and mother would have thought of him dating a boy. "Lucius Malfoy's son, to be exact," he thought ruefully, but he knew that if they had met Draco it wouldn't have mattered.

Picking a pile of money and treasure, Harry sat down and began to sift. The first thing that he picked up was a jade necklace. Harry imagined his mother's face with that necklace on and smiled.

Sifting again through the coins, next he found a beautiful mirror. As he stared down into it, his face swam out of view and another replaced it. His mother smiled and waved and just as Harry wondered where James was he was there beside her, smiling. Then Sirius' face swam across the mirror, replacing Lily and James'. Harry realized that he could control who was in the mirror by thinking about them. _Ron, Hermione, Draco, Luna, Neville…_he felt a pang in his heart when he realized how long it had been since he had seen Neville and Luna.

Placing the mirror carefully aside, Harry crawled around to another pile and began to sift through that. There were several piles of jewelry, but it was all necklaces and everything he had picked up clearly belonged to his parents, not Regulus Black.

"Aha!" Draco cried suddenly. Harry was jerked out of his concentration. There were noises in the corridor; a cart rattled past but did not stop. He turned around to face Draco.

"What is it?"

"Is this it?" Draco was holding a thick oval locket aloft in front of him, grinning. Harry's heart leapt then sank. It was not the locket; Slytherin's locket was gold.

"No," Harry said glumly, resuming his search with increased desperation. Draco's smile fell of his face and he dropped the locket dejectedly and then he too kept searching.

Harry was starting to feel a lot like giving up when something pushed the locket out of his mind once more. He gasped, and Draco turned around to look at him.

"What is it?" he echoed Harry's earlier words.

Harry seized both handles and tugged the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup from a pile of rubble. It was very heavy for his little boy body to lift and he ended up setting it down again on a pile of paper. Coins cascaded in every direction, ringing and clinking. Draco stood up to see what Harry had found.

"Wicked," the blonde smiled.

"Why would my dad have this?" Harry asked, confused.

"Well, according to _Hogwarts a History_," Draco said, suddenly sounding so much like Hermione that Harry started, "when the plaques on the cup are filled the captain of the winning team of that year gets to keep the Cup."

"Awesome," Harry breathed, running his finger over the little plaque that read _Gryffindor_.

"Hey, look," Draco picked up a small locket from the hole made by the Cup. "Is this it?"

"No," Harry said regretfully.

"Do you think summoning works in a Gringotts vault?" Draco asked.

Harry shrugged and then waved his wand, "_Accio locket_!"

No less than fifty lockets burst forth from the piles of gold, hitting Harry in the shins and hands as they raced at him.

"…I guess so," Draco said, mildly amused. He picked up a locket and held it up for Harry's inspection. Harry shook his head; that wasn't the locket either. They began pulling lockets off the pile and examining them. After several minutes, Harry was getting discouraged. When he picked up a large gold locket that he had been sure was Slytherin's and it promptly turned into a golden tiara in his hands, he threw his hands up in frustration.

"It will take us forever to sort though all over these," Harry observed. "Look, all the chains are tangled up."

"Maybe we should summon Regulus' things instead and then sort the lockets out from that?" Draco suggested. He waved his wand and murmured, "Accio Regulus Black's possessions!"

Nothing at all happened. Draco turned to Harry, confused. Harry raised his own wand and repeated the spell. He was immediately inundated with a hundred odd objects.

"You must have to own the vault to summon things in it," Harry guessed.

Draco nodded, pulling apart the stuff at Harry's feet. There was absolutely no locket in it. Harry could feel his legs stretching and his face burning; he was returning to his own form. Draco, pouring over a parchment on the ground now, was starting to go blonde.

"It's not here," he concluded finally, feeling oddly hollow.

"Harry, come look at this," Draco said.

"It's not here," Harry repeated, panic rising in his chest.

"_I know_," Draco beseeched him. "Look at this!"

He shoved a parchment under Harry's nose and pointed to a passage in it. The paper was titled "_The Last Will of Regulus Black._" It was dated August 1980.

"To my brother Sirius," Draco read in apparent excitement, "who was right all along, I leave my house in Knockturn Alley and all its contents in the hope that he can sell them for some gold."

Harry eyes went wide. "Regulus had a house in Knockturn Alley?"

"You know what that means, Harry? He left it to Sirius who left _everything_ to you. There must be a key somewhere…"

They searched. After a few long moments, Draco emerged triumphant, clutching another parchment to which a key was taped. "Here's the property deed and key! 722 Knockturn Alley…"

"It's there, isn't it?" Harry's stomach seemed to flip over. How would they get to the locket now?

Draco nodded. Another cart rattled past but did not interfere with them.

"We should go," Harry decided. He couldn't believe that security hadn't come after them yet.

"Yeah," Draco agreed, tossing once last look over his shoulder at the mounds of gold as he followed Harry from the vault. Swinging the heavy door closed again, Harry withdrew the key and then mounted his broom.

"Can you get us out?" Harry asked Draco.

"Out to where?" Draco asked. "I don't think we'll be able to get back to Bill and the others now."

This hadn't occurred to Harry, but he knew it was right. "Into Diagon Alley then, I guess?"

"Ok," Draco said, and kicked his way off the ground. Ten minutes and one very close shave with a cart full of goblins later, they found themselves in the cart room with the chandeliers where they had started. Here they ran into another problem. There was no handle on the inside of the door to the lobby of the bank.

After some debating, they decided that their best bet would be to wait until somebody came through and then try to sneak past under Harry's invisibility cloak. Eventually, they were not sure how long exactly, a family came through with a goblin. Together they squeezed past before the door closed and crept along the corridor to the lobby. They appeared behind a counter where an old goblin was angrily shouting, "Where is Ragnok!" over and over. Avoiding the jostling and surging crowds of customers there, they wormed their way outside.

They did not take the cloak off until they were well away from the bank. Diagon Alley was dark now, the few lights that were not broken glowed gloomily over the cobblestones. Looking through the windows of the shops, Harry could see huddles of people, often large crowds, inside every one.

They hurried up the street, dashing quickly through the patches of light. Evenutually and too late, Harry realized that the few people left were all Death Eaters. They were everywhere, hiding in the alleyways and sitting on the benches. Inevitably, one of them near the entrance to Knockturn Alley spotted Harry and Draco, and called out, "Oi, you there!"

"Run!" Harry urged Draco, pulling the confused blonde after him down several side-streets before throwing the cloak over them.

"Harry, what…"

"They're all Death Eaters!" Harry whispered urgently. "Come on, we've got to get inside. Fred and George's shop is around here somewhere."

Walking as fast as they could underneath the cloak, the two men paced back to the main street and then tiptoed up the storefronts to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Peering through the dark glass of the large windows out front, they could not see anybody. Circling the store, they went around the back and knocked gently on the door. Even the soft knock seemed to hit the night like a canon blast.

Several long moments later, they heard the lock click over cautiously. The door opened the smallest crack and a voice whispered, "Show yourself."

This was an odd request from somebody who could not see them, but Harry and Draco did as they were told. As the cloak slithered off their shoulders and into Harry's arms, the door finally opened.

"I thought it might be you, Harry!" a beaming Neville whispered, pulling them inside and shutting the door tightly again. It was very dark in the shop storeroom, but Neville moved with unusual grace through the piles of boxes until they reached a staircase that led them upstairs. There, sitting in Fred and George's living room, was Luna.

As soon as she saw them, she jumped to her feet and hugged Harry, smiling at Draco. "Hello boys," she said warmly and dreamily. "It's very nice to see you again. We were getting rather worried about you all."

Harry grinned back, relief washing through him in waves as he knew that his friends were safe. Draco looked happy to see them okay too. Clearing his throat, the blonde asked, "Neville, how did you know that we were invisible without opening the door?"

"Oh," Neville looked suddenly solemn. "I had this. You can look through it like a telescope."

Reaching into his pocket, the chubby boy pulled a glass sphere. With a sick swoop, Harry realized what it was. "Moody…?" he asked, knowing the answer.

"He was killed by Rodolphus Lestrange," Neville said heavily. "That's how they found out safe house. They figured that you would be with Moody, but of course they were wrong."

"Are the other safe houses still safe then?" Draco asked. Harry, for his part, sank heavily onto the nearest couch and put his face in his hands. Moody…_dead_….

"Yeah, I think so," Neville guessed.

"Well, at least that's good news," Draco said, sitting beside Harry and draping his arm across his shoulders comfortingly.

"You guys should get some sleep," Nevile suggested. "Tomorrow is not going to be easy."

"Yes, don't worry, we'll protect you," Luna murmured.

Both boys look vaguely skeptical but there was no denying how tired they were. Getting up and stumbling over to the beds in the next room, they fell onto them gratefully and fell almost instantly to sleep.


	22. Regulus Black

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Finally the whole chapter! I'm warning you now, there is a bit of this chapter that would rate as a very__** high T**__ maybe even __**M**__. That section is marked out with little __**HD**__s, so if you don't want to read it you can skip over. My never-ending thanks you everyone for being so patient, I just finished my midterms and got this chapter done today. Yay!_

_EXTRA THANKS TO:_

_**orene treke**__: wow, thank you! and I'm glad it's worth it. :)_

_**Maria**__: I'll be as fast as I can, I promise! Ragnok is pretty awesome. And don't worry, 80,000 words in is not really the time to abandon a fic. :) _

_**tonks is cool**__: thank you! yeah, Kingsley is dead, sorry. I am going to go through the whole story later and edit out plotbunnies but right now I only have time to write new chapters. Well spotted!_

_**Miss. DeBlanc**__: thanks :)_

_**Tarkemelhion**__: you'll see. Harry has had quite enough monsters, don't you think?_

_**Faerylark**__: hum!_

_**Lydia**__: you'll see!_

_**Miss Insolence**__: thank you very much! My midterms went OK and now here's a new chapter!_

_**Songbird Severine**__: whew thank you!_

_**Gachnar**__: none taken! I'll be sure to read that fic as soon as I have some free time. _

…_.for their wonderful review; you guys motivate me to write! Also, thanks to __**Spannie**__ and __**Ravenfrog**__ for adding HPUG (lol, funny abbreviation) to their C2s. _

_I can hear you yelling at me, "_Alright, alright, whatever! To the chapter already!_"_

_So here it is._

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Regulus Black**

It was the worst night that Ron could remember since his father had been attacked at the Ministry. He and Hermione sat in the corner of the room with Ginny, Dean, and Seamus, waiting for Harry and Draco to return. Ragnok had dropped them off furiously, had a few choice words for Bill and then departed swiftly. The eldest Weasley brother was now sitting in the corner with Charlie and Percy and sending Ron icy looks now and again. The warm candlelight competed with the dancing waves of glowing blue fire and the darkness, so they all looked as if they were lying just below the surface of a lake.

Ron watched each hour strike. As midnight tolled, and then one o'clock and two, his anxiety grew. 'Where were they? They should have been back by now,' he thought desperately as Hermione finally nodded off on his chest. Her hands curled at the nape of his neck and her breath dancing on his chin made his eyelids fall shut. He fought hard to stay awake, but even when his eyes were open the light was so eerie and the room so silent that it was hard to tell that he was not already dreaming.

Meanwhile, the subjects of Ron's fitful sleep were just over three blocks away. Harry and Draco had fallen into Fred and George's beds and immediately asleep, dreams claiming them. Neville and Luna stayed awake in shifts, listening for the slightest sound, but there were none except the occasional heavy footfalls of the Death Eaters marching up the street. Every so often a wandlight would point through the front window or somebody would jiggle the door handle at the store entrance, but nobody ever actually came inside. During her shifts, Luna sat still for hours on end, reading and absent-mindedly stroking Neville's head in her lap. When it was Neville's turn to be awake he would sit with his wand in hand and his eyes open to the ghostly shapes of the boxes. Every half hour or so, he would sneak up to the window and check the street outside for anything suspicious. The streetlamps poured out over deserted cobblestones and silent alleyways that were like a ghost town, and yet Neville knew that just behind the motionless facades of the stores there was a small army of people hiding, staring back at him invisibly and waiting. It was frightening and thrilling at the same time.

The next day dawned unremarkably, with a faint pink glow creeping up the street and illuminating the wreckage and debris caused by the riot the day before. Harry woke quietly, sat up and replaced his glasses just as the first fingers of daylight were reaching out to touch Draco's cheeks in the bed next to him. Padding silently across the floor to the bathroom, he slipped out of his dirty and ripped clothes and into the shower.

"722 Knockturn Alley," he repeated the address over in his mind as the pounding hot water jostled his brain into consciousness. "How will we get _there_?" Harry thought. Images of him and Draco running from the faceless Death Eaters all through London swam drowsily before his eyes.

Turning off the shower, he stepped onto the purple bathmat and grabbed a purple towel in amusement, marvelling at the twin's fashion sense. Just as he was setting to the difficult task of drying his mass of hair, the door cracked open.

"Harry?" Draco's voice asked sleepily.

"Oi!" Harry warned, but the blonde continued into the room undeterred. Finally catching sight of Harry, Draco's sleepy eyes widened slightly and then ran appraisingly up and down Harry body a few times. Harry blushed and glared half-heartedly at him.

"Don't you knock?" he asked in mock annoyance.

"Nope," Draco, more awake, said, walking up to him and settling his hands on Harry's hips, "and I am _so_ glad that I don't."

Harry gasped as Draco leant forward and kissed down his wet neck. The blonde snickered and the sound sent a jolt of lust through Harry. Grabbing Draco's filthy shirt and pulling it off, Harry planted his palms on the Slytherin's chest and pushed him against the bathroom wall. Not giving Draco even a second to breath, Harry pinned his boyfriend against the door and kissed him hard.

_**HD**_

Draco squirmed and moaned as Harry ground his naked hips against Draco's clothed ones and ran his hands all over the blonde's torso, finally gripping them both in Draco's hair and holding his head steady as he kissed his way down his neck and onto his chest. Draco's hands gripped Harry's back tightly and they kissed hotly again, their tongues battling playfully.

Harry gently uncoiled one of his hands from Draco's hair and slipped it slowly down Draco's chest and over his stomach, which fluttered as the blonde gasped into their kiss. Leaving Draco's mouth, Harry kissed along his boyfriend's jaw line and behind his ear as he slowly and gently slid his hand underneath the waistband of Draco's boxers. He could feel the blonde's pulse against his cheek as he tilted his head back and whispered, "Harry…"

His blood boiling and his knees feeling a bit shaky, Harry slid his hand still lower, sliding through curls of blond hair and finally gripping Draco's dick loosely in his hand. The other boy arched into the touch, bringing a hand up to curl into Harry's hair lustfully. Taking advantage of Draco's tilted head Harry kissed gently up and down his boyfriend's neck as he began to stroke slowly. Draco twisted and groaned under him, thrusting a bit into his hand. Harry kissed him harder, sucking and biting as he felt all the pent up nervousness and fear of the last few days drain away into the overpowering feeling of Draco's body all around him.

After what felt like both an eternity and only a few moments, Draco came shuddering into Harry's hand and moaning his name quietly. Harry pulled his face back down and kissed his lips gently. Pulling back, he stared at his lover's flushed cheeks and panting, pouting lips. He had the intoxicating feeling that he was one of very few to ever see Draco so unguarded. Only a trace of the older, darker Draco was visible now in the mischief around his eyes and the prideful set of his mouth. Harry knew that even those were not the same as before; what Draco had to be proud of and what mischief he got into were profoundly different than the boy who had led an attack on Hogwarts only a year ago. For several long moments they both simply stood there against the wall, revelling in their shared closeness.

There was an embarrassed cough from the area of the door and the boys turned to see Luna standing there with slightly widened eyes. Mortified, Harry made to pull his hand out of Draco's boxers and then, feeling the slickness of his fingers, thought better of it and settled for awkwardly pressing their bodies closer together.

_**HD**_

Standing awkwardly in the doorframe, Luna blinked at them for another short moment before smiling. "I knew you weren't so bad," she informed Draco dreamily. The blonde merely nodded, stunned.

"We'll be having some breakfast soon, if you two want to eat before you go back out," Luna informed them pleasantly and then, still smiling, backed out of the room.

"Hey Luna," Harry called, finding his voice. Draco gave him an exasperated look, not believing he would call her back in there.

"Umhm?" Luna's head popped around the door again.

"Um, sorry…but we haven't told people yet," he beseeched her. "If you want you can tell Neville, but please nobody else just yet."

"Of course," Luna drifted away again. When she was gone, Draco kicked Harry and made him jump backwards, wrenching his hand from Draco's boxers.

"Tell _Longbottom_?" he mocked with a haughty glare at Harry, but Harry saw him trying not to grin. "Just for that, you don't get to share my shower."

With a flurry, Draco pulled off his boxers and stepped into the shower, wrenching the curtain closed. Laughing, Harry finally finished towelling off and wandered out into the bedroom to select some of the twins clothing to put on.

Fully dressed and hooded jump and jeans, Harry wandered through the hall towards the smell of frying sausage now filling the apartment. Neville was staring at a picture on the mantle of the little room that served as both living and dining room. Harry recognised it as a copy of the picture of the old Order of the Phoenix that Moody had shown him years ago and he wondered briefly how the twins had got a copy. As Harry came around the corner, Neville reached out to touch the glass.

"Hey Neville," Harry said cautiously.

Neville jumped, knocking the picture backward so violently that it hit the wall and slid off the mantle. It fell down into the hearth, burying itself in ash and sending dust and dirt pluming up like a cloud in the fireplace.

"Oh no," Neville murmured, picking up the cracked frame. "Reparo…_reparo_…Harry, would you give me a hand, I've never quite managed…"

He looked beseechingly up at Harry, but the dark haired boy was not looking at him. Harry was staring into the fireplace, where the fine powder of ash was slowly falling back into place. It gave him an idea.

"Neville, do you reckon this fireplace is connected to the Floo network?" he asked slowly.

Neville stepped a bit aside, revealing a small pot sitting behind him on the mantle. "They've got the powder here," he replied," so I would imagine it is connected. Unless they had it disconnected since the decree…"

"If it is connected," Draco said, appearing in the doorway from the bedroom, pulling a shirt over his head as he walked, "then can we use it to get to Regulus' house?"

Harry was amused to see that Draco had unknowingly selected on of Fred's Weasley jumpers, something his would have not touched with a long pole several months ago. As it was, his messy, dripping hair and shabby clothes just made Harry love him even more. "I doubt it," Harry mused. "That house is probably disconnected from the network. Still, we could always get close."

"You don't just want to Floo anywhere in Knockturn Alley," Neville cautioned. "Many of those houses are owned by Death Eaters."

"Yeah," Draco agreed solemnly. "I know a few houses on that street, but they are all Father's friends, who I would rather not visit just now."

"There's Borgin and Burkes," Harry suggested warily. "I've Flooed there before."

"You've Flooed to Borgin and Burkes?" Draco said, surprised.

"To Borgin and Burkes?" Neville echoed incredulously.

"Not intentionally," Harry volunteered in his defense.

"I was going to ask," Draco said. "The people there aren't exactly pleasant."

Harry grinned before he could stop himself. "The only people I've seen there are you and your father!" he teased.

"You've seen me there?" Draco asked, surprised again.

"Yeah," Harry chuckled. "With your father in second year, when I Flooed there by accident, and then again last year when you were yelling at Borgin about the Vanishing cabinets."

A shadow passed over Draco's face and his brows creased slightly. Finally he sighed, saying, "Well that proves it then; people there aren't very pleasant at all."

"In fact," Harry added still teasing, with a touch of a grin. "They are often trying to overthrow Hogwarts from the inside."

Suddenly there was a faint scream from outside and then several loud bangs and the rumble of raised voices. Harry, Neville and Draco all looked out the window. From the second floor, they could see that the street was in a state of chaos again as the Death Eaters banged on the shop doors and blasted the storefronts apart to get to the people inside.

"Breakfast!" Luna sang, coming out of the kitchen holding a plate of toast and sausages.

The boys exchanged a look, wordlessly deciding what to do. "That's going to have to be to go, Luna," Harry said, reaching for his wand and tucking it safely in his jeans. "We are all going to have to go."

To emphasise his point, there was a sudden resounding bang and a faint bell jingle as somebody pounded on the door downstairs. "Let's go," Draco said, reaching out and grabbing two pieces of toast. "Thanks, Lovegood."

"Oh it's Luna, please," she replied kindly.

"Neville," Harry ordered as the banging got louder. "Take Luna and go to Gringotts. I'll warn Ron and Hermione you are coming."

"Already done," Draco said, scrawling Hermione's name on the parchment cupped in his hand. There was the unmistakable sound of splintering wood as the storefront was blown out. "Time to go!"

"Wait, take this!" Neville cried and stuffed something hard and cold into Harry's hand.

"Right," Harry said stuffing a sausage in his mouth with his free hand, hauling Draco into the fireplace and grabbing a handful of Floo powder. "Let's hope this works!"

"Borgin and Burkes!" Draco yelled and Harry tossed the powder into the fireplace. There was a rushing roar of flame and then they were spinning around and around past countless hearths and houses. Moments later they slid to a stop again on the floor of the Borgin and Burkes storeroom. Harry jumped up, looking for somewhere to hide even as he heard a reedy voice ask, "What was that?"

Harry scanned the room frantically, finally spying a heavy looking chest in the corner. In three steps he was there, wrenching the top open and crouching inside it. Moments later, Draco had joined him and they had pulled the lid shut again.

There was a sound of dragging footsteps as somebody shuffled in. "Nobody here!" the reedy voice announced in relief and the steps dragged out again. In the semi-darkness, Harry finally uncurled his clenched hand. On his palm lay the object that Neville had given him. He realised with a pang in his heart that it was Moody's eye, staring unblinkingly up at him. Silently thanking Neville and apologising to Moody, Harry raised the glass eye to his own.

Neville was right; it worked very much like a telescope in extending his vision. He saw through the chest and the wall on the other side of the door into the front of the store and even, if he squinted, the street beyond that. Knockturn Alley looked a tumultuous the street it fed with people teeming out of every crack, ready to fight. There were the unmistakable flashes of light as several duels broke out and Harry could see a burly blonde wizard fighting a cloaked man just outside the store.

Back inside the store, Harry could make out the figure of Mr. Borgin and another man who had his back turned. Motioning Draco to be as silent as possible, he slowly lifted the lid of the ancient chest again and stepped soundlessly out. As Draco follow, Harry pulled his Invisibility Cloak from his robes and threw it over them with an almost inaudible _whoooosh_. Together they crept into the front room to wait for a chance to sneak out the door.

They had been standing for only a few moments by the door when Borgin began to speak in a hushed voice to his companion again.

"He means to do it today?" the little greasy man asked.

"He does," the other, sneering voice replied.

"He does not think that challenging the boy when he has a whole army around him would be foolish?" Borgin pressed. Harry felt Draco stiffen beside him and then the blonde grabbed his arm.

"My Lord does not fear Potter or his friends, Borgin," the other man continued smugly. "He has power that such an insufficient wizard as you could never understand."

"Oh, of course," Borgin conceded, sounding supremely unsatisfied. He suddenly clutched his arm in a way that was all too familiar to Harry. Wincing, he looked quickly about the shop and then rolled his shirt sleeve up to reveal a bright, angry looking Drak Mark emblazoned on his forearm.

There was a resounding thud as the duelling blonde man fell against the door, pushing it violently open and smashing the heavy wood slab into the wall inches from Harry's wand hand. The man caught himself and stumbled back to his feet, wide eyed. He scanned the room fearfully and his eyes landed on Borgin's forearm. His head immediately jerked away, pretending he had not seen, but it was too late. Borgin raised his unmarked arm and flicked his wand calmly at the man.

There was a flash of green and a rush of noise and the man fell into the doorway, dead. Harry stared down at him horrified, but Draco had seized his hand and was pulling him through the door, which was propped grotesquely open by the fallen man. Taking a deep breath, they headed into the chaos of the street.

It was quite impossible for them both to stay under the cloak in the bustle and so Harry slipped out and, pulling his hood up, weaved unremarked through the crowds as Draco ran along in the shadows. '722, 722….where is it?' he though desperately as he ran. Then he saw it, a dingy door half-hidden but the gigantic dustbins of the seedy pub next to it, number 722. He stopped running and was nearly decapitated immediately by a severing hex shot at a witch to his left. He ducked, spinning at waist height and worming his way to the safety of the fighting's edge, even as the hex chopped the top of the witch's hat clean off.

Ducking himself between the two huge bins, Harry flattened his back against the building and looked far any telltale gaps or disturbance that would signal an invisible man. It seemed that he had been right about everyone hiding in Diagon Alley overnight as the streets were already full of tired and hungry looking people as it had been the night before. Some were still without wands and the occasional tussle could be seen as people fought for their safety. Still other were duelling the Death Eaters that seemed to have spent the night regrouping and forming a plan. 'A plan, if Borgin is right, to kill me,' Harry thought. He was surprised at how calm he felt about that.

Yet most people, Harry noticed as he sat there, were not fighting at all. There were nowhere near as many Death Eaters as Ministry escapees and the many with nobody to fight were just milling about, most yelling the names of still-missing people or simply standing and comforting each other.

Reaching into his pocket again, Harry pulled out Moody's eye. Scanning the street, he spotted Draco, crouched and walking carefully along the edge of the alley. He looked vaguely like he had been wrapped in cellophane. As he approached, Harry risked waving a hand quickly and Draco spotted it. Trotting over, his boyfriend slid behind the dustbins too and settled behind him, throwing off the cloak.

"Nice looking place," Draco said sarcastically, pulling the house key from his robes and tossing the robe carefully over them both. Again they stood and, carefully dodging errant spells, unlocked the door and slipped discretely inside the little house.

It was surprisingly light inside. Harry, who had been expecting something very much like Grimmauld Place for the younger Black brother, was surprised to see sunlight streaming in through large windows in the hall. The sounds of their footfalls were deadened by the thick layer of dust on the ground and as Draco crossed the carpet his steps sent clouds of dust into the air so that soon the room had a hazy, smoky look to it.

"If I were a Horcrux, where would I be?" Harry murmured, wandering into the sitting room and opening a cupboard.

"More like, if you were Kreacher and only had a few minutes to hide a Horcrux here, where would you put it?"

"Right…." Harry murmured, digging further into the cupboard. "Except that Kreacher didn't know that it was a locket, did he? All he knew was that it was something valuable that Regulus had stolen from Voldemort."

"So how do you hide something from Voldemort?" Draco said, wandering into the dusty kitchen.

"Magic?" Harry suggested with a hint or sarcasm.

"I doubt it, actually," Draco said. "That's what he would expect. Remember, Voldemort can sense magic, Harry."

"So can you," Harry reminded him. "Do you sense anything?"

"No," Draco said definitively. "It's not hidden by magic, which is brilliant really. All you would need is an anti-summoning charm and then you could bury it in the yard and it would never be found."

"True," Harry tested a rotten-looking wooden stair to the second floor with his foot gingerly, "but Kreacher didn't have time to bury it. Plus, he didn't want to hide it forever, he wanted to destroy it."

"Wait," Draco had stopped in the hall. "There is something magically concealed here, but the concealment charms are all…torn up and badly done."

"Do you think that somebody got to it before us?" Harry asked, feeling his heart sink again.

"No, I think that's what we are meant to assume," Draco actually smiled.

"What?"

"Think Harry!" Draco explained. "Kreacher was trying to trick Voldemort! Voldemort would have walked into the hall and sensed the damaged concealment charms immediately. I'll bet Kreacher was hoping that he would assume it had been taken again."

"Ok….." Harry mused, sitting halfway up the stairs. "So where does that leave us?"

"Back where we started. If Kreacher thought Voldemort would be tricked then he would have just had to worry about normal thieves after that. So, if you were Kreacher and had something to hide, where would you stash it?"

Harry jumped up, the answer hitting him like lightning. Jumping down the steps into the hall and back to kitchen, he ducked off into a cupboard-sized room off of it which, as he had suspected, housed the boiler.

"Harry, where are you go…" Draco began, but his sentence was cut off by a resounding BANG that shook the house.

There was a cackle of laughter from outside and a high-pitched voice babbled delightedly, "I saw him running around here and then the door opened by itself, Amycus!"

Harry swore loudly and he and Draco shared a brief look of horror as they both recognized the voices outside.

"Amycus Carrow, and Alecto by the sounds of it," Draco explained unnecessarily. "They're Death Eaters!

"I know," Harry said without thinking. "They tried to kill me at Hogwarts in sixth year."

Draco had no reply to this as it had been him that had let the Death Eaters in to attack Harry in the first place on that occasion. Instead he urged, "Well, we had to get out of here then!"

"One second," Harry said and he stooped so that he could get his hand under the boiler. After a few seconds his hands brushed fabric, far out of sight. Clenching his fist, he hauled the blanket out from under the boiler. Another bang shook the house as he stepped past Draco back into the kitchen and shook the blanket out over the table. There was a clunk and a scraping as a heavy metal locket slide from the folds of the fabric and across the table.

Draco looked at him is disbelief, "How….?"

"Later," Harry said, quickly slipping the locket over his head and then tucking it under his robes so only the chain was visible. "Right now we need to go."

"Fine," Draco agreed as they heard the front door splinter open.

Running to the back door of the house, Harry blasted it off its hinges with a slash of his wand. They spilled out into a shadowy alley between the houses as Amycus yelled, "They're at the back, come on!"

Neither boy paused to look back as they ran through the narrow tunnel that wound between the rows of houses. Soon footsteps were echoing behind them and Harry could hear Alecto Carrrow's panting breath as she struggled to keep up with them and her brother. Suddenly, Draco wrenched Harry between houses and they burst out onto another road.

It was dingy and dirty with an air of indifferent neglect, as if even the residents had forgotten about it or just didn't care. Garbage piled up on the sidewalks and most houses were covered in lurid, flashing magical graffiti.

"Where are we?" Harry panted as he ran alongside Draco. He could just see the bright crossroad that was clearly Diagon Alley ahead. "It looks like a crappy place to live."

The blonde sent him a breathless, confused look. "Of course it does, it's Litter Alley," he said.

"Why," Harry panted, "haven't I been here before."

"I can't see why you would have been," Draco wheezed, his feet slowing slightly. "People pretend its not here because its where all the most undesirable people for our world live – hags, ex-Azkaban prisoners, werewolves, you know. Do you think we lost them?"

Harry noticed that the footsteps behind them had stopped and the Death Eaters were nowhere to be seen. They were now only feet from the swelling crowd in Diagon Alley but nobody so much as looked at them. "Maybe," he said, stopping and putting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. Looking around him, he wondered whether Remus had ever had to live here, being an unemployable werewolf.

"So, what now?" Draco asked.

"We find the others," Harry said, looking up the street.. "Then we tell them that we found it."

"_Found what, baby Potter?"_ hissed a voice, and Harry's heart skipped a beat. Bellatrix Lestrange stepped out of the shadows between two derelict houses, followed by a softly cackling Alecto and Amycus.

"I bet you'd love to know," Harry retorted.

"I would," Bellatrix said calmly, "and I will make sure that you tell me."

"You wish," Harry sneered, backing slowly toward the cross-street.

Bellatrix laughed, advancing too. "I think you will find you are outnumbered."

"I think you'll find you find you should have stayed in school after OWLs, Auntie Bellatrix," another voice cut over Harry's next reply. Tonks had appeared out of the crowd, flanked by Seamus and Dean. Raising her wand, the pink-haired Auror continued icely, "You might have learned to count."


	23. Three Ends

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

_Hey everyone,_

_Oh my goodness life is hectic! Here is the next chapter, which I haven't even proof-read and won't get a chance to until the weekend…I figured you'd like it better with a few spelling errors vs. not at all! I'll get around to it ASAP.  
__Warning: as the chapter title suggests, people die here in this chapter. Three people, in fact, some nice some not.  
__Also, this fic is now longer than Philosophers Stone. I thought that was cool, haha._

_Thanks everyone!_

_Cat_

_**Tarkemelhion:**__ Tonks is awesome!_

_**njferrell:**__ it's a real family feud here, eh?_

_**Pareidolia: **__I don't know if Borgin does, but the guy he was talking to does. And Borgin knows it…that man HAS always been rather sketchy…_

_**Maria:**__ hahaha I'm glad you liked Luna :) _

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**T****hree Ends**

Bellatrix Lestrange's smiled faltered for a brief moment. Then, cackling, she rasped, "Nymphadora, what a lovely surprise. Now I'll get to get rid of both my sisters' traitorous offspring at once."

"You just try," Draco said, the knuckles clutching his wand white.

All at once, Bellatrix leapt into action, firing hexes off in every direction. Tonks, Draco and Harry all jumped forward and retaliated, but Bellatrix dodged their curses with the speed and agility of a cat.

A line of green light whizzed over Harry's shoulder and he was just fast enough to shove Draco out of its path with his free hand. Bellatrix laughed, regaling them with insults. Vaguely Harry registered that Seamus and Dean had each taken on one of the other Death Eaters. Alecto and Amycus Carrow were both so slow and stupid that his classmates were easily blocking their attacks.

"Impedimenta!" Harry yelled as Alecto turned on him. The spell caught her of guard and blasted her back into Bellatrix and both of them fell over, just as there was a little yelp from Dean on Harry's other side.

Whirling around, Harry saw that Amycus had abandoned magic and had begun to wrestle Dean to ground. Aiming carefully, Harry thought, 'Stupefy!"

Amycus went limp and Dean shoved him off easily, jumping back to his feet.

"Harry, Dean, come on!" Tonks called to them. She was standing at the edge of Diagon Alley, about to step into the melee of people searching for loved ones and bickering and fighting. Draco and Seamus were already gone.

Harry shot one fleeting, hateful look back over his shoulder at Bellatrix and then darted over to Tonks. Dean followed a second later after placing an angry kick in Amycus' stomach, and together the three of them headed onto the street. Harry noticed for the first time that the crowd appeared to be thinning as families found each other and Apparated away to safety. Running behind Tonks, Harry easily spotted Draco's flaxen hair a block up and sped up.

"REDUCTO!" a voice bellowed behind him and suddenly his view was obscured by an explosion of dust and wood chips. Somebody, and Harry had a feeling he knew who, had blown up the store in front of him. As the crowd panicked and jostled ahead of him, Harry grabbed Dean, the only person he could still see, and pulled him down an alley. Together they ran past dingy backdoors and between dumpsters.

Rounding a corner, Harry slammed into another body running the other way. Catching himself short of smashing into the alley wall, he blinked and recognized a dazed Seamus, Draco behind him. His heart pounding, he heard footsteps echoing down the alley behind him now.

"Let's go," he urged, leading them down the first path he found, not knowing where it lead or why he was going that way. All he knew was that they needed to get back to the main, busy street, and so with each alley he tried to wind closer and closer.

Finally, when Harry was sure that his lungs would burst from the pain in his chest and he could taste the irony tang of blood in his throat, he saw a glimpsed of the sunny, busy road again. Darting toward it, he was only feet from the light when Draco grabbed his arm and yanked him through a door in the side of the alley instead.

Dean and Seamus were already inside what appeared to be a neglected storeroom, full of brooms. Rubbing his shoulder now, Harry slowly caught his breath. "Where…are…we?" he panted.

"Quality…Quiditch Supplies," Seamus replied. "Mam's friend owns it, so I knew they always leave that door unlocked."

"Tonks?" Dean asked.

"She's not…with you?" Draco's alarm was apparent on his flushed face.

"No," Harry said. "She was going past the building when Bellatrix…."

"Blimely," Seamus gasped. "You don't think…the explosion?"

"No," Draco said, angrily, but he still looked worried.

There was the echoing sound of footsteps outside in the alley then, and the voices of the Carrow's reverberated off the walls.

"Damn, they've gone on the main street!"

"Now how will we find them!" There were more hurried footsteps.

Dean had moved to the doorframe that led to the store's front and, peeking cautiously around it, he whispered that the two Death Eaters had just gone past.

"We have to go find Tonks!" Draco urged.

"We _need_ Ron and Hermione," Harry countered, sending Draco a significant look and gently patting his chest. Under his shirt, the locket clinked innocently.

"Fine!" Draco said, worriedly. "I'll go back with Dean to find Tonks…I just can't not know what's happened to her…"

Harry was suddenly reminded of how much Tonks had come to mean to Draco, especially since he had lost his mother. She was the only worthwhile family that the Slytherin had left. "Okay," Harry said, opening the side door a crack. The alley was deserted.

"Seamus and I can go back to the bank and try to get to Ron and Hermione."

"Good luck," Draco said, pulling Harry into a quick hug. Their eyes met for a second and even under these circumstances, Harry felt his stomach jump. Then Seamus was crowding him out into the alleyway and turning toward the main street. Looking over his shoulder, Harry watched Dean and Draco duck around the alley corner they had just come by and wondered when he would see them next.

His worry could only increased a moment later, however, when Seamus muttered, "It should be easier to get into the bank than before. The goblins have given up their posts and are just guarding the vaults from everyone now."

"What?" Harry gasped, ducking quickly around a group of wizards.

"Yeah," Seamus breathed. "People have gone completely nuts, wanting to get as far away as possible I guess. Everyone is trying to draw more money than they even have and the goblins were getting swamped. Then there were rumours that a vault had been broken into..."

"That was Draco and I," Harry interjected.

"Well, that made the goblins freak out and they stopped letting anybody in at all."

Harry whistled, "That can't have helped."

"No," Seamus agreed, but then his next sentence was drowned out by a bickering couple.

"I leave her with you for ONE SECOND…" the woman was shouting.

"I told **you** to watch her!" the man argued, and then Harry had ducked around them and Seamus can back into view.

"…the place." Seamus finished. They were very near Gringotts now, its white façade harsh in the sunlight.

"Pardon?"

"I said, people went totally berserk and started ransacking the place. It's a mob inside."

The two boys were again separated by a crowd and Harry was forced to stop to let a long line of people stream past him. Suddenly, something gripped his leg.

Harry yelped and jumped away, for a moment terrified that the Death Eaters had caught up with them. When he looked down where he had been, however, there stood only a little girl staring up at him who had just begun to cry.

Seamus was still gone from sight, so Harry edged closer to the toddler again. "Um, he asked awkwardly, bending over as far as the pressing crowd would allow, "what's wrong."

"I th-thought you were Daddy," the girl cried. "Where's Daddy?"

Remembering the fighting couple from up the road, Harry scooped the child up without another word and dashed back up through the crowd, hoping he could get back before Seamus noticed he was gone.

"We'll never find her now!" he heard a shrill voice to his left and shoved through a group of witches. The toddler was now positively howling.

"Excuse me," Harry burst out of the crowd in front of the couple. "Is this your daughter?"

The toddler stopped crying immediately, and the woman cried, "Angela!" Grabbing the girl from Harry's arms, she hugged the baby to herself. Harry turned to duck back into the crowd, but a hand caught his arm.

"Wait," the father said, confused. "How can we thank…"

He trailed off and Harry watched with sudden dread as the man's eyes flicked up to his scar. Twisting his arm violently away, Harry ducked between to nearby wizards just as the man shouted, "Harry Potter! He's _Harry Potter_!"

'Stupid, stupid, stupid,' Harry berated himself as he ducked through the crowd, which had taken up the chant of "Harry Potter!" Every person he passed tried to grab him, but his Seeker reflexes did him well and he managed to evade their eager hands. Suddenly, another voice rang over the crowd, one which made Harry's heart leap.

"Lay off him you sodding idiots!" Ron bellowed, pushing his way so that he was up beside Harry and grabbing his arm. Hermione was right behind him, tugging them both into a nearby shop through the broken doorway. Looters had ransacked Flourish and Blots beyond recognition, but somehow Hermione managed to pull them through and over bookcases and piles of textbooks to the counter, which they crouched behind. With all the wreckage, they were quite invisible to the door.

"Where's Dean!" Harry said, feeling the situation rapidly slipping from his control.

"Don't worry," Hermione whispered. "He's the one who came to get us. When Neville and Luna arrived we al went up to the front of Gringotts because we figured you would need us soon enough. Dean said that Tonks was missing, so he, Neville, and Luna have gone off to find her. Dean said you just disappeared. Where did you go?"

Harry blushed, feeling slightly stupid for helping the girl now, and did not answer. Instead, he reached under his shirt and drew out the locket. Hermione and Ron gasped. "You got it," Ron breathed.

"Draco and I found it," Harry said, nodding. The he smiled a little, adding, "Kreacher had hidden it under the boiler in Regulus' house."

Hermione smiled at that, but her look soon turned to serious contemplation even as Ron asked, "How are we going to destroy it now, though?"

"Yes," Hermione bit her lip. "We don't have any type of weapon that can do it."

"Well, personally I don't fancy letting it possess any of us either," Ron contributed.

"But that leaves…." Harry began, but he was cut off by a horrible scream from outside, followed by a familiar, cackling laugh. As one, the three of them rose and dashed over the mountains of books and back onto the street, Harry tucking the locket away as he ran. Outside was a scene to stop his heart.

The street had nearly cleared, so that now only a few frightened bystanders huddled as far away as possible from the fight going on in the street. Bellatrix had found them again, flanked now by at least ten other masked Death Eaters. Opposite them were Draco, Tonks, Dean, Seamus, Neville and Luna. Between them a woman lay on her face, unmoving.

"You are a monster," Tonks hissed. Harry could barely remember her so angry.

"She was in my way, Nymphadora. The Dark Lord does not tolerate being opposed and neither do I," Bellatrix replied easily, flicking her wand so that the dead woman's body slid horribly over the cobblestones and against the nearest storefront.

Harry's blood boiled with fury. "Stupefy!" he yelled, aiming at Bellatrix. The evil woman dodged the curse and then the air was thick with flying spells.

Harry dueled the closest Death Eater, dispatching of him with an Impediment jinx that sent him through a second story window nearby. Looking around, he saw Ron dueling Puis Thicknesse, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement. The normally well groomed Ministry official had obviously not shaved or combed his hair in a while and the effect was alarming. For the first time, Harry could imagine this man as the person who had Imperiused the Minister.

Ducking between Luna and Neville, who were both dueling a Death Eater each, Harry went to Ron's aid, helping him Stun Thicknesse. The two of them then ran through the crowd, helping others. Twice in a minute, Harry only just threw up a shield charm in time to save one of his friends from an attack from behind. Cursing the Death Eaters' dirty tactics, Harry Stunned a short wizard with such force that he feared the man might have actually stopped breathing.

"Tonks, look out!" somebody yelled behind him and Harry whipped around. Bellatrix's curse hit Tonks full in the face and she fell over. For a moment she writhed and twisted in pain, moaning in agony, and Harry was torn between being horrified and being relieved that the curse had not been Avada Kedavra. Then, even as he fired a Stunning jinx at Bellatrix to distract the woman from her easy target, Dean and Seamus erupted from the fighting pairs with wands drawn.

Bellatrix turned, and over her shoulder Harry saw Seamus and Dean drop to their knees in front of Tonk's who was bleeding profusely from her face. Time seemed to slow as Alecto Carrow stepped from the crowd behind the huddled group. "No!" Harry screamed, but again he was too late. Alecto raised her wand and brought it slashing down. The jet of green light flew over Seamus's shoulder and hit Dean in the chest.

Harry seemed to be fighting Bellatrix in slow motion as he dodged curses and twisted away from the Death Eaters' hexes. He watched Seamus' horrified face as Dean's grip on Tonk's torso slackened and he fell backwards. He ducked a curse as Deans head fell back onto the pavement and his eyes, unseeing, met Harry's. He felt numb as Neville ran over to take Tonks from Seamus and the Irish boy knelt over his friend, but he had to keep fighting.

Bellatrix was also watching the unfolding scene and laughing maniacally. Harry had never hated somebody so much as he did just then, not even Voldemort. "Avada Kedvara!" a shout rang out, and Harry ducked, but the shot was not at him. Seamus was on his feet, his wand trembling as Alecto Carrow was blasted against a wall by the force of his spell. Amycus bellowed in fury even as Bellatrix's latest spell singed a tear in the shoulder of Harry's robe, but then Neville and Luna were there protecting Seamus and fighting off the enraged brother.

"I'm going to kill you, baby Potter," Bellatrix purred. "Does that interest you?"

Tearing his eyes from his friends, Harry replied scathingly, "Then you'll never know what I've found. I'd be very afraid to destroy it if I were you – Voldemort prizes it highly."

A flicker of fear ran over Bellatrix's face, but then she sneered, "Ah, but of course you are bluffing."

"Nope," Harry teased, throwing up a shield as Bellatrix threw another spell at him.

"He's not lying, Aunt Bellatrix," Draco was suddenly beside him. Harry felt another person to his other side and looked to see Remus, his eyes flashing with fury. Bellatrixed laughed again.

"The traitor and the werewolf, what friends you have Potter! You expect me to believe any of you that you have a secret my Lord has kept even from me, his most trusted advisor?"

Draco laughed mirthlessly, "Voldemort would not even confide the day of the week to you anymore, Auntie Bellatrix."

There was almost nobody left nearby in the street. Harry could see people milling around up near Eyelops, but he was happy that people had cleared out of their way. Only the dead witch and another woman, presumably her friend, huddled against the store just up the road. Looking at them again, Harry's stomach fell even further than before.

Out of nowhere Draco had shoved him to the ground and was leaping over him to get better aim at Bellatrix, who had attacked Remus. "Help Tonks!" the older man ordered Harry and Harry obeyed his old teacher with no question. Dodging the still-dueling Neville and Luna, who were just managing to control Amycus Carrow, as well as Ron and Hermione, Harry made his way over to the four figures huddled in the middle of the fray.

Seamus was sitting unmovingly on his knees with Dean's body laid over his knees between the fallen Tonks and Alecto, his shoulders shaking. When Harry approached him, the Irish boy made no attempt to hide his tears as he looked up. Harry felt his own eyes sting as he looked down at Dean's blank eyes and vague expression on the face that moments ago had held so much life. He grasped Seamus' shoulder comfortingly, thinking of Dean's bothers and parents waiting for him back at Gringotts. He realized that Mathias, who was so excited about sharing his brother's world with him, would have to learn to be a wizard by himself.

A spell barely missed Harry's ear and he snapped back to the moment. Amycus was fighting tooth and nail to get to his sister's body and Neville and Luna were not able to keep him safely away. Seized by a sudden burst of inspiration, Harry reached out to Alecto's fallen form and poked her side, murmuring "_Portus_."

The Death Eater's body glowed blue for a moment and then Harry flicked his wand and it rose into the air. Amycus howled, thinking Harry was going to abuse his sister's body as Bellatrix had done the innocent witch. 'You would think that,' Harry thought, numb anger flowing through him, and then he sent the body gliding over Neville and Luna, setting it down in front of the angry Death Eater they dueled. Amycus flew at Alecto and as soon as he touched her they both disappeared in a flash of light.

Neville and Luna gave little gasps of surprise and turned to look at Harry. Tonks suddenly groaned on the ground in front of Harry and the couple moved towards them. "We need to get Tonks and Seamus and Dean somewhere safe," Harry asked them for help.

"ARE YOU INTENT ON DESTROYING YOUR **WHOLE** FAMILY BELLATRIX?" Remus roared angrily from behind them. Harry spun to see her standing over Draco, who had fallen to the ground and lost his wand. She laughed as Harry sprung to his feet.

"Protego!" Harry said and a shield erupted between Bellatrix and her defenseless nephew. There was a gasp and a loud moan as Tonks was cajoled to her feet by a distressed Neville. Remus half made to help them, but then Bellatrix rounded on Harry.

"Not so fast!" Remus said, and now he was truly livid. "Not Harry! You may try to destroy your own family, but I will not let you obliterate mine!" The werewolf made a violent slashing movement with his wand and a whip of black lashed from his wand.

Bellatrix screamed with an agony much disproportionate to a whip lashing and then a horrible thing began to happen to her. Her skin began to wrinkle and sag, her hand shook and became veined. Her eyes grew yellowed and sunk back into her head rapidly as her spin curled and she was bent over. Weight melted off of her until she was almost a skeleton and then she fell over, her legs bending up into her chest into a ball. She moaned as her skin began to grow horrible sores and then her voice died as her face rotted away and Harry knew she had died. In mere moments all that was left was bones and then those disintegrated into a layer of dust. A gust of wind swept the street, blowing the ashes away from then and she was gone completely.

The only two remaining Death Eaters standing, dueling Ron and Hermione, saw what had happened and vanished with a pop and then there was ringing silence. Finally, Harry spoke. "What…?"

"Accelarted aging curse," Remus muttered, staring at the spot where Bellatrix had been. "Sirius taught…"

"Sirius taught you that?" Harry exclaimed, incredulous.

"Not exactly," Remus murmured, shaking his head. "He read about it to me one day at Hogwarts…I haven't even thought of it since then…I just wanted…."

"Kill her as painfully as possible?" Draco asked, sarcastically, getting up. "Let's not waste time feeling bad about my aunt here. Nobody answered him.

Tonks groaned, tearing Harry and Remus from their thoughts. Neville and Hermione had helped to her the Flourish and Blots storefront, where she had collapsed again against the wall. He moved out of Harry and Remus' was as they knelt before the injured Auror. The sight was awful. Hermione was waving her wand around Tonks' face, cleaning up and stopping the blood flowing from her face, revealing the huge hole dug out of their friend's face. Tonk's left eye was completely missing and the socket around it was red raw and scarred. Even as Harry watched, Hermione was sealing and healing the wound and Harry wondered vaguely where she had learned healing charms.

Remus had reached into his pocket and pulled out a bar of chocolate. He gave nearly a quarter of it to Tonks and another whole quarter to Seamus, whose teeth were chattering in the warm sun and who Harry realized must be in shock. The rest Remus divided up between the rest of them and as the chocolate melted on his tongue Harry smiled a bit, remembering his Dementor lessons in third year when his biggest worry had been falling off his broom and seeing a Grim.

Tonks was gingerly touching the empty eye socket, some colour returning to her face. "My eye is gone," she said slowly. Her hair melted into the same mousy brown of last year seemingly unconsciously and Remus pulled her into a hug.

Harry cast a featherlight charm on Dean's body so that Seamus could easily carry him as the little group trudged back through the deserted street towards Gringotts. Harry wondered idly where all the people had gone but he could not really make himself to curious. He was dreading seeing Dean's family.

They walked slowly up the marble staircase and into the bank like men condemned to the gallows, Ron and Draco the only ones bothering to even look around for enemies. Harry was exhausted all of a sudden and all he wanted to do was sleep and escape what he knew was still to come. Voldemort was still out there, waiting.

Just as Seamus had told him, the goblins were nowhere to be seen. Several angry people were arguing in the atrium of the bank but none of them so much as looked at Harry and his group as they passed. Harry guessed that the goblins must all be guarding the room with the carts if they were preventing people from accessing their gold.

It was several more minutes but felt like only an instant before they were walking up to the open door into their Gringotts hideaway. Harry watched numbly as Dean's mother caught sight of them and then fell to pieces. A sudden wave of his own emotion caught in his throat and he could not stop the tears that started to fall then. He looked around at his old dorm mates as all of them stared at their fallen friend. A hundred wonderful memories of Dean flashed through his mind. One stuck in his mind; a banner that said "Potter for President" with a Gryffindor lion draw underneath flying over the stands of his first ever Quidditch match. He remembered how much calmer that banner had made him feel that day. It did not seem fair that the same boy who had drawn that lion had been murdered before he could see his brother at Hogwarts.

Harry felt Draco's arms go around him and then he registered Ginny's confused look when he didn't come comfort her. He suddenly remembered that Dean had been her boyfriend too, but he couldn't care just then.

After several minutes, Harry felt Neville tug on his sleeve. The other boy was red-eyed and wet-cheeked as well, but he was pointing at Tonks. "Harry, do you still have Moody's eye?" Neville was asking curiously.

Sudden excitement stirred stiffly in Harry's grief-filled brain. He reached into his pocket, disentangling himself from Draco, and pulled out the eye and together the three boys walked over to Remus and Tonks. Wordlessly, Harry showed Remus the eye. Shock and horror flitted over the man's face and he whispered, "Moody?" realizing what must have happened, but then comprehension dawned on his face. "Dora," he said, shaking Tonks a bit. "Look at this."

Tonks looked up at them and then at the eye. Awful understanding filled her remaining eye and her face crumpled. "I can't…." she murmured.

"Dora, he'd have liked that you were using it," Remus suggested. Tonks shook her head several more times and then finally nodded, holding out her hand. Remus took the eye from Harry, cleaned it quickly with his wand and then passed it to Tonks. Carefully, Tonks pushed it into her still-tender eye socket.

For several long moments the only sounds in the room were the sobs of Deans' family as Tonks stared at the floor, blinking rapidly.

"Tonks?" Draco asked timidly. Suddenly Tonks gasped and wrenched her head up to look at them, the glass eye staring through the back of her head.

"What is it?" Remus asked, concerned. "Does it hurt?"

"No, no. Harry," Tonks breathed anxiously. "Half the Ministry is standing outside the bank."


	24. Prophecy Fulfilled

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything.

Hey all,  
_whew_ Well here it is, the longest chapter _ever_, haha. Sorry it took so long. I'll post up the epilogue in a few days to give you all a chance to have your last questions/comments answered (by leaving a review, yay!), but never fear, it _is_ written and so won't be absurdly delayed.  
Much love,  
Cat

_Now to reviewers! I got my first flame last chapter (which amused me, because they managed to read 23 chapters before reviewing), complete with the misspelled words and bleeping out of the word gay. Made me laugh, because you know you are a true slash writer when… ;)_

_So that aside, thanks so much to my (actually) great reviewers:_

_**orene treke: **__yah, sorry about that cliffy, I hope the ending lives up to it!  
__**Maria:**__ I'm so sorry…I blame university, it's too hectic!  
__**ginny75: **__I'm glad you like it. :)  
__**Pareidolia: **__I know, I felt wrenched writing that. In essence, Deansad, Remusawesome, and Tonksunbeatable.  
__**Bellatrix Black Potter: **__well, here it is! Thanks for the review  
__**Tarkemelhion: **__that was a pretty awful curse…but if it had to happen to anybody….  
__**Songbird Severine: **__I LOVE borshch!  
__**Harry's Shadow Kit:**__ I'm sorry to hear that…hopefully it improved?  
__**kamion:**__ you and I think similarly then! I sketched out this whole story before deathly hallows came out (at points they were scary similar as it turns out) as what I though should happen…plus Draco. ;)  
__**spikesbitch: **__I'll do my best! And your name made me laugh out loud. :) _

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Prophecy Fulfilled**

There was a ringing silence at Tonks' words as even Dean's family was surprised into silence.

"The Ministry?" Seamus breathed. "What do they want?"

"Me," Harry said, sure he was right.

Mr. Weasley nodded gravely. "The only people who remain with the Ministry after yesterdays break out are Death Eaters and those they have Imperiused."

"Is he out there too?" Ginny asked quietly to Tonks, who shook her head.

"I can't see him," Tonks said, her eyes now both closed. Harry knew she was looking out the back of head to the street above. "He's probably waiting for Harry to show himself."

Harry stood up, feeling as if his muscles were wood. "Well, I'd better go then," he said determinedly.

"No!" several voices echoed in the dimly lit room.

"No Harry," Remus said more calmly, "you must not do that. Voldemort _wants_ you to step out alone to protect your friends. He does not want a battle that will kill the few surviving followers he has."

"So I'm just supposed to let you all fight and die so that I don't have to?!" Harry's temper rose, he felt as if he had had this conversation a million times before and they never listened to him."

"_Yes_," Hermione said with the air of Professor McGonagall patiently explaining how to transform hedgehogs into guinea pigs to Neville. "That's exactly what you should do."

"No!" Harry said, frustrated. He could feel Dean's fallen form silently calling to him from behind. He felt he had to protect them from further harm. "What's the point in that? Why throw your lives away when I can end this madness now?"

"To give you an advantage," Draco said simply.

"Harry, have you even though of what happens if you _don't_ kill Voldemort?" Hermione said chidingly.

Harry blinked at her. Now that he stopped to wonder about it, he realized that he had never really looked past his fight with Voldemort, assuming that either it would be the end of Voldemort or the end of his own life. Never once had he thought about those he would leave behind and how they would suffer under an unbeatable Voldemort.

"I would rather die than serve him again, Harry," Draco nearly whispered.

"If he gave you the choice Draco," Remus said quietly. "For most of us, a government headed by the Dark Lord would almost certainly mean death."

"So you're not really protecting us, mate," Ron said patiently. "You might as well let us help you."

Harry sighed, looking around at them all. The Weasley's, all but Charlie staring at him determinedly, Neville and Luna, Fleur and Krum, Oliver and his Quidditch team, Seamus, Blaise, Pansy and their families and Dean's body and his brother and parents. "What can," Harry counted quickly, "Nineteen witches and wizards, with two underage and two unable to fight, plus four Muggles, do against half the Ministry? We just don't have the numbers!"

Mr. Weasley smiled slightly at this. "I understand your confusion, but your counting is a bit off, Harry," he said, drawing his wand.

Moments later, the Death Eaters outside were shocked and stunned as a giant Patronus erupted out of the bank's door and, splitting into five, briefly blinded them as it streaked off over Diagon Alley and into the countryside.

HDHDHDHDHDHD

Parvati Patil was lying out on a giant rock in the sloping lawn at the front of the Mountain Goat Lodge; her eyes closed and relaxed enjoying the cool morning sun. In front of her, the mountains stretched on seemingly endlessly, blue and purple. Having her eyes closed, Parvati did not seem was not streaking with breakneck speed across the landscape.

A weasel Patronus was streaking like a star towards her. Hearing a faint whoosh and then a slight thump, Parvati cracked an eye open, thinking that Euan and his sister had returned to their favorite pastime of lobbing pinecones at her. In seconds she was on her feet as she saw the weasel shake itself and then stand on its hind paws and stare at her from several meters away.

"Minerva McGonagall!" It called in a carrying whine-bark and Parvati turned to echo the call.

"Professor McGonagall! Padma!" she said, only slightly fearfully. The Patronus was stopped just outside the boundary of the safe house, so she knew it could not hurt her, but she also did not recognize the voice.

McGonagall came hurrying outside of the Lodge, pulling her hat on as she went. "Professor, there's a…" Parvati began.

"Yes Patil I can see it!" McGonagall snapped, distracted. Her hair was wet, as if she had just gotten out of the shower.

Padma burst out of the door next, followed by Euan and his sister. Of the two twins, Padma had always been the quieter and the more care giving of the two of them and the kids they were watching had taken to her as much as they had grown to dislike Parvati. They were followed by Lavender, who looked as if she was just waking up.

McGonagall had reached the Patronus and it spoke again, "Minerva McGonagall!"

"Yes, yes, Arthur it is I," the professor snapped. "What is the message?"

"Under siege by Ministry at Gringotts. Please help," the Patronus reeled off, and then vanished into a wisp of smoke.

McGonagall blanched then turned on the girls standing on the lawn, dumbstruck. "Padma, get the children ready, we'll hide them at Gringotts when we get there." Padma hurried to do as she was told, herding Euan and his sister back into the lodge. The other girls stared at McGonagall.

"Well, _get moving_!" McGonagall snapped after a moment. "We've got to go!"

HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDH

Harry stood in the now-empty atrium of Gringotts. His heart was hammering, racing as if trying to escape what Harry knew lay on the other side of the great front doors. The goblins were nowhere in sight, but Harry could feel them lurking in the wings of the gigantic room. He supposed that they ought to just be thankful that they had decided not to side in this battle – the protection of Gringotts gold was apparently paramount. Now only their party occupied the hall, scattered in little clumps everywhere, whispering. Bill and Krum had just finished sealing the doors closed.

Ron and Hermione were sitting huddled in the corner of the room, murmuring to each other. He knew the briefest pang of jealousy before Draco sidled up to him and discretely slipped his hand into his own. Harry did not really care who saw anymore, not when this really could be his last moment with Draco. He leant against him, their arms pressed together almost to the shoulder, and sighed.

Suddenly the silence was rent by an explosive blow against the doors, which shook and creaked on their hinges. "Alright, alright everyone!" Mr. Weasley strode into the room, Mrs. Weasley behind him. "I've sent requests for help to the other safe houses, but it seems we are going to have to make due for now. Would all the Muggles and those underage please come over...you too Mathias!"

There was a grumble from the small wizard, who had picked up a stick and was brandishing it like a wand, but one look from his mother and he slunk along meekly with his older brother. His father stood behind them, his stepson's body cradled carefully in his arms. Percy took Charlie by the arm and led him over to the group, which Seamus' dad reluctantly joined after a quick farewell to his own family. Finally only Mafalda was left, struggling tooth and nail to stay and fight.

"Mafalda, you can't," Bill said patiently as he lifted the girl off the floor and carried her to the departing group.

"Ginny is staying!" Mafalda shouted angrily. "She's underage!"

Molly Weasley turned to her daughter in mild surprise, as if she had only just remembered this. Ginny, sensing danger, spoke up. "I'm almost overage Mum! Mafalda is only eleven!"

Bill set Mafalda on the ground and, holding her there with two hands, addressed his mother. "We need whoever can fight to fight Mum," he said with a touch of regret. Mafalda opened her mouth again. "Everyone," Bill said more sternly, "who _can_. Mafalda, you are too young."

Then Bill sunk to his knees in front of his cousin. "Mafalda, I want you to take care of Charlie while we are here, OK? It's very important," he looked beseechingly at her.

Mafalda blinked, and then straightened up tall, "I'll take good care of him," she promised. There was a second explosion outside and the chandeliers high above them shook dangerously. Mr. Weasley grabbed a discarded oil can off a nearby and pointed his wand at it.

"_Portus_!" he said, and then handed it to Dean's mother. All of them leant forward to touch the lamp. As soon as Mafalda had guided Charlie's hand to press against the cool glass it glowed red hot and they all vanished in a swirl of light.

As one, the rest of them turned toward the doors, which now sounded as if they were being pelted with large rocks. Harry felt Draco drop his hand as Oliver Wood and a still silently crying Seamus can up beside them. Harry saw Bill and Krum raise their wands and, in one synchronized motion, break the already-straining charms on the door.

They burst open, bombarding jinxes flying inside and hitting the walls and floor. Thick, white dust filled the air as the marble desks were blasted apart and into the walls and there was instant confusion. Harry ran forward, too afraid to cast spells as the dark shapes around him in case they were friends. Raising a shield charm, he ran as fast as he could toward the light of the now-open doors. He could feel others around him, and then suddenly the dust was clearing and he ran out into the bright street.

His heart failed a bit as hundreds of people raised their wands on him. Thinking quickly, he yanked the Invisibility Cloak from his pocket and whipped it over himself. There were cries of anger as he vanished and the Ministry wizards began firing curses at random where he stood. He ducked and dodged them, coming to a stop behind a pillar just as Draco emerged from the dust. There was another collective hiss at the sight of the traitor and Draco only just managed to raise a shield charm in time. Harry pointed his wand at the witch in the very front and Stunned her, giving time for Draco to run. The blond ducked quickly along the wall and off into a side street, pursued by two wizards in Unspeakable robes. Now more people were flooding out; Angelina and Alicia followed by Seamus and Luna, all running in different directions and pursued on all sides.

Harry wrenched the cloak off again and ran back from behind the pillar. There were shouts and several people pointed. He ran, trying to draw as many people away from Gringotts' entrance as possible. Ducking into an alley, he was followed by no less than ten witches and wizards. Spells rained down on him as he ducked around another corner. Blasting a hole in the nearest storefront window, he jumped inside and tore into the backroom.

He was in Borgin and Burkes, he realized. An idea suddenly seized him, and his eyes cast franticly around the room. Spotting what he needed, Harry yanked a Hand of Glory off the shelf and, as his pursuers raced into the room, dashed for the back door. Sending a Stunning spell over his shoulder, he heard a body fall to the ground. There were yells and crashes as the wizards behind tripped and fell over their colleague.

Harry ran on, still pursued by at least six people. The back alley he was in emptied abruptly into Diagon Alley again and he spotted his goal. Sprinting up the street away from the bank, Harry made for the colorful front of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. The front door was ajar, and he wrenched it open. Weaving between displays of tricks, Harry dodged curses from his pursuers as he ran into the backroom. Grabbing a box off the shelf, he turned and waited. The Ministry officials ran in, stopping short several meters away at the sight of him standing there calmly. He parried a few curses as the last man ran into the room.

"_Colloportus_!" Harry shouted, pointing his wand at the door. It slammed shut and sealed with a sucking noise like a plunger. "_Expelliarmus_!" Harry bellowed, and the wands of the six men and women flew from their hands and, at the same time, Harry threw the box of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder to the floor. The room went pitch black as the wands sailed away from their shocked owners, and Harry squeezed the Hand of Glory. Light burst around him and he found the back door again. Opening it, he burst forward into the street behind the shop, turned and sealed that door closed as well. There were bewildered and angry shouts from those trapped inside, but Harry ignored them.

Less than a block away, Harry heard Ron's laughing voice taunting, "You won't catch me you fat, lumbering Death Eater!" and then his streak of red hair slid across the side street entrance to Harry's right. He was followed by a panting Amycus Carrow, who ad murder in his eyes. Harry followed them at a run as they rounded a corner and once again were on Diagon Alley.

"_Stupefy_!" a girl's voice ran out, and Amycus Carrow dropped to the ground. Padma Patil dropped her wand as Harry ran up.

"Padma!" he looked around. "Parvati, Lavender!"

"Hello Mr. Potter," McGonagall was striding up the street, followed by no less than twenty Hogwarts students, including Peakes and Coote and Colin Creevey. Romilda Vane gave him a dazzling smile as they strode pas him and into the fray that had erupted throughout the street.

There were hundreds of people in the street again, pairs and triplets of battling wizards and witches. Harry ran forward, striking a Death Eater down as he ran. Hagrid had arrived, and Harry saw him taking down two wizards at once with his pink umbrella. Grawp stomped angrily outside Gringotts, leaving bathtub sized dents in the cobblestone street.

McGonagall faced down a black-haired wizard with a high forehead only meters away from him. It was dueling as Harry had never seen it before. The wizard shot fire from his wand, which McGonagall dodged and then transfigured into a flock of sparrows that went diving at the man, who conjured a giant dog that leapt into the air at McGonagall, swallowing the birds as it went.

A curse whizzed over his head, forcing his attention back to his own safety. A man in Death Eater robes had just tried to curse him. Harry threw up at shield spell, but before he could do anything at all, the man was blindsided by something large and black. A cauldron had smashed into him, knocking him over and pinning him to the ground.

"_Expelliarmus_!" Harry shouted before the man could levitate the cauldron off himself, then he looked around. Terry Boot and a group of younger Ravenclaws that had been staying with him were sending cauldrons flying from a store to Harry's left, while one store over Anthony Goldstein was doing the same with the heaviest books from Flourish and Blots. Harry watched in elation as a the boy burst open a cage of Monster book of Monsters, which immediately slithered in every direction, biting at the ankles of anybody they could reach.

There was a laugh and a scream from somewhere nearby though the battling pairs, and Harry turned to see Draco blasted off his feet and into an upturned cauldron. The Death Eater he was dueling, Augustus Rookwood, cackled. Harry struggled though the crowd, fighting is way towards Draco, but the other man was standing over him now, wand against the blondes' throat. Draco stared back at him defiantly, but Harry yelled "No!" as the Death Eater raised his wand high in the air.

"_Duro_!" Ron's voice sounded from high above them, just as Harry got within hexing range of Rookwood. A blue spell soared out of nowhere and hit the man in the chest. He froze and fell over, turned instantly to stone. Draco looked up, and Harry followed his eyes to see Ron flying over them on a broom from Quality Quidditch supplies. The redhead smiled down at Draco, who nodded gratefully up at him, and even amidst the danger and chaos of the battle Harry felt his heart lift.

Jumping over the statue Rookwood, Harry came up to Draco. "_Evanesco_," he said, waving his wand, and Draco fell to the street as the cauldron he was stuck in vanished.

"Ow!" Draco complained, but he was smiling, clearly pleased to see Harry okay. Together they turned and began to run though the crowd. It was very hard to tell friend from foe, as the families of all the Hogwarts students mixed with the Ministry officials. Harry mentioned this to Draco as they were held up by Professor Slughorn shuffling past backwards, dueling a small man with blue hair.

"_Inimicus tintus_!" Draco said by way of response, waving his wand high in the air. Immediately several witches and wizards all around them turned violently yellow. Draco turned around and cast a body-bind curse on one of them as he looked at his newly luminescent skin. "That should make it easier!" Draco said. Harry laughed and could not resist pulling him into a deep kiss.

"I knew it!" Ginny's voice called near him and Harry jumped out of his skin. Ginny grinned at Harry and then turned to Pansy, who grudgingly tossed a gold Galleon over the head of the man Ginny was battling to the redheaded girl. Harry and Draco stared at them, their mouths open.

A moment later there was an explosion that shook the ground in front of Harry and he watched as Eeylops Owl Emporium burst into flame. The trapped owls screeched in fear and pain. Pointing his wand through the broken front window, Harry yelled "_Alohamora_!" and the cages of the birds flew open. Angry and scared owls poured out over the crowd, pecking at everyone's heads and hands.

"_Aguamenti_!" Harry yelled, and his cry was echoed from Ginny and Luna behind and Ron and Seamus above him.

Then Harry felt cold creeping up his neck, despite the blazing inferno in front of him, and dread stole into his heart. The sounds of the fighting crowd were slowing as people fell silent where they stood, as if doused in ice water. Harry turned as if in honey, as if each muscle movement was difficult, to face up the street.

Dementors were gliding silently down the street, at least ten of them. They were almost upon the furthest battling pair: McGonagall and, fifty feet from her, a disheveled Delores Umbridge. He could not get though the crowd to them, he though desperately. Ron swooped above him and, without thinking, he shouted, "_Accio_ _broom_!"

A broom burst from the store up the street and pelted toward him. As it reached him he climbed astride it in one fluid motion and then sped up over the heads of the paralyzed crowd.

"_Expecto_ _patronum_!" McGonagall had cried, but the cat that burst forth from her wand was not enough to hold off the knot of Dementors alone. Umbridge was cowering and Harry realized that she must not be able to produce a Patronus. Flying low over them, Harry yelled the incantation and the silver stag cantered out of the sky towards McGonagall. Running in circles around her, the stag was a silver ring of protection. McGonagall looked up at him and Harry smiled at his old Professor.

There was a scream up the street as the Dementors crowded around Umbridge. Those near enough to help her simply backed away in terror and too late Harry tried to direct his patronus at the hateful woman. The Dementor nearest to her had forced her onto her stubby knees now, and Harry felt nauseous as the hooded figure bent to kiss her. A moment later the deadly silence of the street was rent with a tiny, pitiful scream and a gush of wind and Delores Umbridge's soul was ripped from her body. Harry's Patronus faltered and died as horror overwhelmed him, as the Dementors backed away to reveal a huddled, unmoving shell of a woman on the cobblestones between them.

Then the monsters were turning to McGonagall again and with a gargantuan effort Harry reproduced his Patronus. Ron's silver terrier and a grey wolf bounded out of the crowd. Together the Patronuses charged the Dementors and drove them back up the alley. As the cold fear of them drew away, the yellow-stained wizard and witches resumed their battle with vigor.

Swooping over the crowd, Harry sent spells flying at the Ministry witches and wizards who were still fighting. The crowd was thinning so that it was mostly only the most skilled Death Eaters that had not fallen under the crushing numbers of students, teachers and parents attacking them. Harry watched as Fred and George ran though the fray blasting their enemies off their feet with fireworks and cherry bombs and as Oliver and Ginny dueled two Death Eaters on brooms high above the street.

A glint of silver caught Harry's eye and he looked down to see Wormtail dueling Colin and Denis Creevey, the later of whom was bleeding from a long cut in his robes. Harry swooped low to cast a shield charm protecting the two boys, but as Pettigrew saw him his face twisted mischievously and he fired a jinx at Harry instead.

Harry's broom lurched and plummeted to earth so that he only had time to kick his feet in front of him and land, his feet braced and his knees feeling shattered by the impact. He winced but rolled off the broom, whose handle was imbedded in the pavement now, and whirled to face Wormtail. The man flicked his wand again and the Creevey brothers were blasted backwards, away from them, as the Death Eater looked greedily at Harry.

"_Ava_–" he began.

"_Silencio_!" Harry yelled, and Wormtail stopped, too weak to do non-verbal spells. Harry's blood boiled with anger. He stared the man down for several seconds, saw the defiance and hatred in those eyes, and then the anger in him boiled over.

"You're pathetic, Peter Pettigrew!" he yelled so loudly and suddenly that the duelers nearby actually paused for a moment to see what was happening. "You killed my parents, and now you would kill me, when you owe me a life debt!"

It happened so fast that Harry was not sure had happened at all. Another Death Eater ran past and shouted "_Finite_!", then Wormtail was on his feet and before Harry could so much as blink the evil little man had jumped forward and seized him, poking his wand into Harry's throat.

"Get your dirty off my son!" A fiery voice screamed from behind him, and for a moment his heart jumped disbelievingly. "_Avada_ _Kedavra_!" A shout rent the air, and Harry flinched, sure he was about to die, but then Wormtail was blown off Harry and simply stared backwards at him. After a long, suspended moment in which their eyes met, he fell to the ground, his silver arm detaching with a pop as he lay spread eagled, dead, on the cobblestones.

Then Molly Weasley was beside him, grabbing his shoulders and looking him over quickly. "You're all right?" she asked hurriedly.

"I…" he looked at her, dazed. "Y- Yeah. I'm fine."

"Well, thank goodness for that," Mrs. Weasley said, giving him a quick squeeze.

There was a faint pop behind them and Harry moved without knowing why, even as a high voice behind him whispered the Killing Curse. Harry, still thinking of how Mrs. Weasley had called him 'her son', turned and bellowed, "_Protego_!"

The shield time went up just in time and the jet of green light was diverted upwards to the heavens. Voldemort stood yards away from him up the street and everywhere people were running, screaming and trying to get as far from the figure as possible. An area several stores long cleared so that he, Voldemort, and Molly Weasley stood alone with the Death Eaters above them and Harry's friends below in front of Gringotts. Many bodies, mostly – Harry saw with relief – Death Eaters, littered the semi-vacated street.

Harry pulled the Invisibility Cloak out from under his robes where he always hid it with his free hand and thrust it backwards at Mrs. Weasley. "Get out of here," he begged, willing her to listen to him and not put up a foolish fight. There was a swish of the cloak and then Harry felt her draw away, heard her footsteps in the otherwise silent street. Everyone was watching.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort said with relish and then he attacked. A jet of green light flew from his wand at Harry, who had to jump out of the way as his shield charm faltered. Voldemort laughed. "You choose to fight, Harry Potter? You think you are a match for me?_ I cannot die_."

Harry said nothing, his eyes skimming over the street for anything he could use to defend himself. Voldemort yelled in anger at his lack of response and fired another curse at him.

"_Accio_ _cauldron_!" Harry called, and a large black cauldron zoomed over the cobbles and landed in front of him. He felt foolish, ducking behind the metal pot, yet he heard the spell ding off it harmlessly. Voldemort laughed again, mirthlessly, and blasted the cauldron out of his way.

"_Imperio_!" he rasped, and this time Harry was not quick enough. The spell hit him dead in the chest.

A wonderful, glorious emptiness filled his head. His cuts and bruises ceased to hurt, and the alarmed cries of the crowd were dulled as he stood staring placidly into Voldemort's eyes. "Come to me," a voice said in his head. "Let's put on a little show for your dear admirers."

It was so easy to obey, so have somebody else work and somebody else decide and he almost welcomed the death he knew must come soon. He was now but feet from the Dark Lord. The voice in his head spoke again, "Good. Now, kill that Muggle-loving Molly Weasley for me."

His brain suddenly reared in protest, even as his wand arm rose and he turned. Just as Barty Crouch, Jr. had taught him in four year, Harry snapped out of the curse immediately and as he did so Harry felt his scar burn and then burst open as rage like Harry had never felt surged in Voldemort. In one fluid motion he pointed his wand at the loosened cobblestones and shouted, "_Avis_ _oppugno_!"

The stone leapt up and become birds that pelted themselves at Voldemort and the split second that Voldemort needed to throw up a shield charm was enough. Harry spun on the spot and then instantly re-appeared several storefronts away from Voldemort. Ron was meters from him and Harry heard him whisper a slightly amused, "Nice one Harry." Next second, Harry had to throw up another shield charm as yet another Killing Curse flew over his shoulder at Ron, who ducked.

The fighters turned to face each other again, blood pouring from Harry's scar down his face. Voldemort, his robes in shreds, glared at Harry with pure hatred and fury.

"I will finish you Potter!" he taunted. Slashing his wand, the Dark Lord sent a net of spider silk at Harry, who was forced to dodge it. When he looked back up, Voldemort was already raising his wand again. "_Av_ –" the evil wizard began.

Fear welled in Harry like the climax of a symphony and he knew that the time had come. He did not have time to shield himself this time; the spell being cast would kill him. He could only fight back, or he would die having done nothing.

With surprising peace filing him, Harry quickly raised his wand and screamed. "_Avada_ _Kedavra_!"

The two spells zoomed together, missing by inches and over them Harry caught a glimpse of Voldemort's untroubled and triumphant face. The other man did not even try to dodge Harry's curse as the beams of light streaked across the street. Less than a second later, Harry was blinded by a flash of green so intense that he was sure it had become a part of him, that he was green as well, and then he was blasted off his feet and down Diagon Alley. There was a scream, Harry was not sure if it was his own or not, and then he hit the cobblestones with a sickening crack.

He hurt all over as he struggled to move. His head pounded and his forehead was still bleeding, but he could barely feel this over the pain in his chest. The locket that he had entirely forgotten about under his shirt was burning into his flesh and he tried to wrench it off to no effect. He struggled to his feet, bent double. There was also a horrible emptiness under the pain, as if somebody had cut out his heart and it was this feeling that caused Harry to sink back to his knees.

The pain of his knees colliding with the stones focused his mind. He was alive. Why? Raising his head gingerly, Harry saw Voldemort had fallen over too and was lying motionless on the street. McGonagall was striding bravely over to the motionless figure. Reaching him, she bent over and examined the Dark Lord. Finally, she straightened and, looking straight at Harry, she called triumphantly, "He is dead!"

Several moments of stunned, ringing silence followed this during which McGonagall turned to look at him, obvious delight that he was alive spreading across her features. Then the street exploded with noise and action.

People streamed out onto the street, screaming and shouting with total abandon. The identical heads of Fred and George ducked quickly into their store and moments later sparklers and crackers were zooming around the crowd jubilantly. People everywhere were hugging and crying and laughing, more people than Harry would have though could fit in the street. The Weasleys were clearly visible, all worming their way over to him through the rejoicing crowd.

Even as all pandemonium broke loose, Harry understood what had happened. Finally pulling the locket off, or really out of, his chest, he saw that it was cracked open and empty. Voldemort had destroyed his own final tie to life with a Killing curse he had meant for Harry. He understood the feeling in his chest, Harry realized suddenly as people rushed towards him. He had killed Voldemort with his own killing curse and it had ripped his soul. Somehow this did not trouble him; he knew it would heal over time.

He did not have time to dwell on this, however, because seconds later he was pulled to his feet by Ron and Hermione and pulled into their arms. "Harry!" Hermione gasped, how –"

Harry lifted the locket to show the two and looks of wonderment and understanding filled their faces. Moments later, Draco reached them and nearly shoved Ron and Hermione off Harry again so that he could hug his boyfriend.

"You did it, you did it," Draco murmured to Harry's ear in a message that was somehow much louder than the screams of joy and shouts around them. Harry felt a huge hand land on his back and knew Hagrid had gotten to them. He stepped a step closer to the half giant, using Hagrid's size to shield himself from the mobs of people now trying to get to him. He felt all the strength leave him as he internalized McGonagall and Draco's words. It was over. Voldemort was dead.

Hands rained down on him and Luna was there, hugging him tightly, and then Ginny. Mr. Weasley wrung his hand and McGonagall dabbed a handkerchief offered by Bill to her eyes as she congratulated him. Krum and Oliver Wood had joined the Weasleys, who appeared to have recovered some brooms and now were tossing Weasley's Wizard Wheezes products from high into the air into the delighted, jubilant crowd.

He watched as Tonks, Lupin and a dozen others levitated the Death Eaters' bodies into a heap on the street forming a putrid yellow pile outside the boarded up Ollivander's. The bodies of the fallen teachers and students were levitated into the hall of Gringotts, and Harry saw with a pang that Terry Boot and Peakes were among them. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see more, but they were forced open again as yet more people came to congratulate him, to pour thanks upon him.

Nearly ten minutes of madness later, Harry's hand was gripped again and he looked into the face of Seamus Finnegan, his mother standing behind him. The smile he offered Harry did not quite reach his eyes. Harry's stomach felt hollow as he unwillingly imagined how he would feel if he were the boy, if it were all over but Ron lay in the silent hall down the street, unseeing. He felt a surge of empathy for the Irish boy and pulled him into a hug.

When finally he seemed to have spoken with everyone in the street and he had satisfied himself that all his dearest friend had survived, he sought out Ron, Hermione and Draco, who were sitting on the dusty sill of Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlour. As he reached them, he traced the ice cream cones painted on the window and thought about the dead storekeeper, wondering for the first time what he had done to be targeted by the Death Eaters. He realized that there were so many people other than him who had fought Voldemort with no recognition.

"Come on Harry," Ron urged, grabbing him, leading him through the pressing crowd to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and pressing a fake wand into his hand. "Dad has set up a Portkey to Hogwarts; you need to rest."

Hermione and Draco's hands joined Harry and Ron's on the wand and Harry caught one glimpse of Neville and Luna waving jubilantly at him and shouting soundlessly through the window and then there was a jerk behind his navel and he was pulled, along with the most important people in the world to him, to the peace and safety of home.


	25. Epilogue

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns it all.

_Hey everyone,  
Here's the epilogue, hopefully you have all got a chance to read the final chapter. Over two years and its over! Please leave a review, I'd really love to hear from you all about what you think about the story as a whole. I'll post up replies on this same chapter in about a week. Thanks so much for reading.  
Bye!  
Cat_

_Thanks to the ever-faithful **Pareidolia** for reviewing last chapter. I'm sorry to have scared you like that, but did you really think I would have killed Harry? ;)_

_**Harry Potter and the Unholy Grails**_

**Epilogue**

The sun was setting on Hogwarts castle like it had done so many days in his time as a student and the giant squid swam lazily across the lake. Harry Potter stood at the foot of the Astronomy Tower. There was a large expanse of wall that had been destroyed just here during the Death Eater's occupation of Hogwarts. In the three years that had passed since Voldemort's defeat it had been rebuilt and the new stones stood out brightly against the ancient walls around them.

They stood out for another reason as well. Blaise Zabini had had the idea that perhaps they ought to honour those fallen in the war somewhere at Hogwarts. As a result, each stone of the new wall was engraved with a name of somebody who had fought and died for Hogwarts and for the rest of the world's freedom. From where he stood, Harry could just see Dean Thomas' name, finally resting beside his father's, about ten feet up the wall. Zacharias Smith and Cedric Diggory were also there, as were Albus Dumbledore, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Florean Fortescue. Off to his left, as a testament to Hermione's advocating of their rights, Kreacher and Belindia's names lay amidst a whole section of other magical creatures. Above them lay another entire, very large, section of Muggles and Sqiubs. Frank Bryce and Hermione's parents lay at the very center.

Harry ran his fingers over the name in front of him: _Severus Snape_. It had taken everyone a lot of convincing from Harry to get Snape's name on the wall. He had, after all, killed Dumbledore. Still, in the end he had saved Harry's life and he had been fighting for his family the same way they all had been and that was what mattered. Now his name was carved into the castle forever right beside his mother's, for whom he had died. Just above Snape's name was Narcissa Malfoy's, who had been murdered by her husband for resisting the Dark Lord. Draco had laid the stone into the wall himself.

Harry moved along, finding the names he had been looking for. In a small cluster at waist height slightly down the wall were his parents. _James Potter _and _Lily Evans Potter_, immortalized forever in the place they had met. Beside his father's name Harry saw Sirius', and beside his was Regulus Black. Harry felt a stab of regret for the two brothers, who would never be reconciled or know that they had fought for the same cause.

"Hello Harry," a voice greeted him softly from just behind him. Harry turned to see that it was Remus, dressed in a very new set of dress robes and looking more well put together than Harry had ever seen him.

"You look great Remus," Harry said warmly, embracing the older man. The werewolf had become something of a foster father to Harry in the last few years, living with him and Draco at 12 Grimmauld Place. He was writing a book about werewolves and half-humans, in the hopes that by getting the true story out they could help change public opinion of those who were different.

"Well, I figured that if there was ever a day to spend a few extra Galleon's, it would be the day you marry the girl of your dreams," Remus smiled. Gone was the pale and worried man that Harry had met in his third year at Hogwarts. Under the positive influence of the changing world and Tonk's companionship, Remus had slowly shed his worries and regret. He looked happier than Harry could ever remember seeing him these days.

"Don't you have wedding guests to greet?" Draco asked Remus, coming up behind them. In Harry's considered opinion, he was the best looking person at the whole wedding. He laced his arms around Harry's waist, leaning against his back, resting his chin on Harry's shoulder and gently pressing a kiss to his cheek. Harry reveled in the touch and the fact that it was happening here, in the open and in front of his guardian. It had taken them both a lot of time and a lot of courage, but when they had come out it had been the most liberating experience of Harry's life. Of course, he had been silly to worry. There had been backlash – Rita Skeeter had had a field day – but nobody Harry cared about had so much as teased him about it. The werewolf sighed and smiled ruefully.

"I suppose I do," Remus smiled again. "I thought I asked you two to help Tonks keep the guest list small?"

Harry smiled too. "Remus, you know so many people, how would that be possible? Come on, let's get it over with."

Indeed, Remus was right. There were hundreds of people here for the wedding, milling around the grounds in front of the lake. Taking Draco's hand, Harry led the three of them over to the crowd.

"Harry!" he heard Hermione's voice call through the people. He turned and spotted her. A beautiful and rather sizable engagement ring sparkled on her finger as she pulled Ron by the hand towards them. Evidently the twins had gifted their brother a few dollars. She looked more beautiful than ever and Ron was definitely showing her off slightly for the other guests. Hermione had become rather famous in the past few months because of her work at her new job in the Department of International Cooperation. Still only an intern, she had helped draft several revolutionary laws that had aided in information sharing and security internationally, helping to ensure that a war like the one that had just ended would not happen again. Both Fleur and, much to Ron's annoyance, Viktor Krum had been instrumental in helping her.

"Hey Hermione, hey Ron," Harry said happily, grabbing them both into a hug. Draco shook Ron's hand, grinning.

"So Ron, have you won a match yet?" he asked teasingly.

"Oh shut up Draco," Ron said smiling. Ron, a Keeper and now a twice winner of the All-Britain Quidditch Cup with the Chudley Cannons, was widely regarded as the one of the best Keepers in the English division. Just the other day, Harry had caught two young witches singing _Weasley is Our King_ in Diagon Alley. Hermione beamed at Ron with obvious adoration as Ron grinned at the Draco, "How about you? Have you gotten published yet?"

Draco smiled, all his beautiful white teeth showing. "Indeed I have," he said and Harry laughed at the understatement. After they had all returned to Hogwarts and completed their final year, Draco had gone on to choose a career in reporting, determined to ensure that the _Prophet_ never reported biased or untrue stories ever again. He had a very popular column these days, somewhat sarcastically entitled 'The Gryffindor Side of Life', that reported courageous or kind things that people were doing. The fact that Draco was writing what amounted to the Everyday Hero's feel-good section of the paper never failed to amuse Ron.

"Hello Harry. Ron, Hermione, Draco," a cheery voice greeted them all. Tonks, her eyeball bluer and more piercing than ever, surveyed them. Clapping Harry on the back, she smiled at him. "Dawlish tells me that you are performing exceptionally in training, Harry."

Harry smiled, blushing slightly. Tonks, as the head of the Auror Department, was referring to the tests Harry was undergoing as an Auror in training. Most of the Aurors had thought it pointless to test him after what he had done, but Harry had insisted on earning his place fairly.

"Tonks," Hermione breathed. "You look lovely."

"Thank you, Hermione," Tonks said and then smiled at Harry, looking down through his robes at his feet as Moody had once done at the Yule Ball. "Nice socks," she said, grinning. A shiver ran down Harry's spine. He toes wiggled in the latest pair of birthday socks that Dobby had given him, and he smiled back at Tonks, unashamed.

A bell rang somewhere, signaling that the guests ought to head to their seats.

"Oh gosh, I'd better go," Tonks said.

"Hello Tonks," Ginny said, coming up beside them. She smiled around at them all, her new Magical Law Enforcement badge pinned to her robes. "Come on guys,' she said, indicating the rows and rows of seats set out on the grounds. They faced the wall under which Harry had just been standing. 'Percy is saving us good seats."

Ron and Hermione headed away with Ginny. Harry and Draco, who were the best man and a groomsman respectively, headed up the center aisle to stand near a slightly queasy-looking Remus. Harry patted him on the back, looking around the chairs that faced them. He watched as Ron, Hermione and Ginny edged along a row towards their family. Percy was already sitting there beside Charlie. Percy had surprised them all by permanently resigning from the Ministry and opting to stay home and take care of his older brother. It had taken a long time, but the second eldest Weasley had slowly gotten over his injury and, with much gentle coaxing from Percy, had mostly returned to his former self. This September both men were scheduled to begin teaching Flying and Arithmancy, respectively, at Hogwarts.

Beside Charlie, Mrs. Weasley fused over a very small baby that Harry could see kept trying to pull out her hair. The parents of this infant, Bill and Fleur Weasley, sat in the row behind her, watching their daughter fondly. Bill, dressed in the sleek black robes of an Unspeakable, met Harry's eyes and nudged his wife. Fleur looked up at him, waving. Harry smiled back and returned the wave.

Mr. Weasley sat beside his wife in a deep gold set of robes. Since being appointed the new Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic two years ago, he had finally earned the respect Harry had always felt he deserved and had even made enough money to repair his destroyed home. When Harry spotted him, he was deep in conversation with a Muggle couple that, judging by their red hair and the fourth-year Slytherin that sat between them, could only be Mafalda's parents. It was a testament to how much Wizarding Britain had changed that Mafalda had been safe to finally admit that her father was a Squib and her mother a Muggle and not fear ridicule.

In fact, Harry noticed, and his smile widened, they were not the only set of Muggles in the audience. Several rows behind the Weasleys, there was another couple dressed in their Muggle best. Beside the smiling Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were two young Harry Potters. Next to them, a well dressed Seamus Finnegan caught Harry's eye and, ruffling Mathias' hair affectionately, grinned at Harry. Harry grinned back, subtly pointing them out to Draco. Logan and Mathias had obviously just gotten back from Diagon Alley; large violet bags from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes were just visible at their feet and they had clearly been enjoying Fred and George's latest product.

"Harry Potter Pops," George had shown Harry the other day, flourishing his hands at a red and gold display in their window. "People suck them and they turn into…well, you."

"Only for a few minutes though." Fred had added with a grin, catching sight of Harry's face.

Mathias, Harry noticed, was already wearing his Hogwarts robes. He had just turned eleven and had been overjoyed to get his Hogwarts letter. Harry had heard from Mrs. Weasley that he had spent a lot of time at Mafalda's house, bombarding her with questions about the castle and the classes.

There was a great creaking at the back of the crowd and Harry sought its source. Hagrid and Grawp, both in awful yellow suits, were seating themselves. Several wizards called their greetings to Hagrid as he helped Grawp into a chair the size of two park benches. Hagrid had continued to teach Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts once it had reopened. He had been appointed as a special advisor to the Department of Magical Creatures by Mr. Weasley himself so that he could advise the Ministry on the best policies for inter-species living. Ron had been horrified to hear this, convinced that soon they would have Blast-Ended Skrewts for neighbours, but the half-giant seemed to be doing well in his new job.

Looking around, Harry's smile faltered for a second as he spied a group of Remus' new werewolf friends sitting together in the center of the seats. They had been given a wide berth by the rest of the guests. Even as he stared, however, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood, holding hands, wandered up and sat down right beside them. Harry felt a rush of affection for them as he heard Luna inquire loudly to the nearest werewolf about how his family was. Luna, as a Healer-in-Training at St.Mungos, knew most of Remus' friends from their regular check-ups at the Dangerous Bites Ward. Neville was soon joined quickly by Professor Sprout, with whom he began to chat immediately, and much of the Hogwarts staff.

Somewhere behind them an organ began to play and the crowd fell silent. At the very last moment, Fred and George came barreling across the grass and flew up the aisle to sit with their family, both wearing huge grins and bright green robes.

A few moments later, Tonks was walking up the aisle with her father, her mother sitting in the front row and weeping. The ceremony went flawlessly and beautifully. When Harry pulled the rings from his pocket and handed them to Remus, he could see the joy in the werewolf's face. When the newlyweds kissed and Tonks hair turned involuntarily bright red, the crowd laughed. Then, as everyone clapped and yelled their congratulations to the new couple, there was a loud bang. Above the castle, bursting off all the ramparts, were fireworks. Harry recognized them as the Weasley twin's and sent them an appreciative grin.

Staring up at the fireworks, now spelling out "Congrats Remus and Tonks", Harry felt Remus lean over towards him. The older man whispered, "I wish your parents and Sirius could have been here, Harry."

Harry looked at the sparkling new wall of Hogwarts. In the reflected light of a giant heart bursting from Gryffindor Tower, Harry could just make out the names on the stones. He turned to his surrogate father and smiled. "They are here. All of them are."


	26. THANKS!

A final goodbye and thank you to my wonderful reviewers of last chapter:

_**orene treke**__: I'm so glad you did! I'll be watching out for more of your fics too. :)_

_**Knyghtshade**__: Yay. Thanks for reviewing._

_**Pareidolia**__: It was my first really long fic, I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did. Thanks for being such a devoted reviewer. As soon as I have time (ha) I'll hopefully be writing some shorter fics, keep a eye out:)_

_**kona-lupe**__: I'm glad. Not sure there will be any more from this story but hopefully there will be more fics. I might use this storyline as canon in later minifics though. :)_

_**evildictionaryninja**__: heehee, yeah I was going to put more in but it sounded really unnatural. Thanks for reading!_

_**coolmarauders**__: Wow, thanks very much!_

_**leiselmae**__: Ha! The infamous Kingsley incident….I might go back and edit it, but probably not. You guys are pretty clever in spotting mistakes! Thanks for the review._

_**mattitudeandrokofollower**__: I'm glad you made an exception! Thanks for reading. :)_

Special thanks to those faithful reviewers that have barely missed a chapter – you know who you are! Also, thanks to the 57 people who had HPUG on their alerts and the 42 who favorited it, your support has been great.

If you didn't get to review yet, don't worry! Post it up and I'll edit the reply into this chapter again.

For those of you interested (definitely just me, haha), here are the final stats for _Unholy Grails_:

_Chapters:_** 25**

_Words:_** 99135**

_Hits:_** 16000 **

_Reviews:_** 124**

Thanks again, I'll miss writing for you! Best wishes to you all,

Cat


End file.
